Coincidence, Minor Leagues and Pickle Ball

By Bill Yanger


They’ve been gone for a while but here's another in a continuing series of imagined conversations over coffee at the Rod & Reel Pier. Any resemblance to persons or personalities, real or imagined, is entirely coincidental and mostly unintended.



Good morning.

Well well. Looky here. I’m seein’ a ghost.

Yeah yeah, go ahead, get all that “where you been hiding”crap over with.

And so?

And so what?

And so, where you been hiding?

Haven’t been hiding. Just been attending to things.

What things? With who?

Who died and made you Oprah Winfrey?

Just asking.Geez.

I’ve been doing stuff more important than shootin’ the bull about a whole lotta nothin’ with old farts like you every morning, that’s what.

Well if you’re trying to hurt my feelings, it’s working.

Boo hoo. Get over it.



Dang dude. You a got serious little chip this morning. I’ll just be finishing this last sip a coffee and moving right along. You know where to find me when you stop acting like Dr. Jerk-n-stein.

No no wait. Sorry. Sit back down.

Nah. I gotta go “attend to things.”

Really, sit down. I apologize.

Say it again.

I’m sorry.

Okay, in that case I’ll be ordering a full on breakfast and you’ll be paying.

Deal.

So what’s bent your rudder?

You have to ask?

Have anything to do with that recall mess?

Maybe.

Look if you’re gonna play hard to get I’d just as soon go scrape some barnacles off my boat.

Okay okay. Just been thinkin’ lately. The recall’s got something to do with it, yeah, but it’s more than that really. Used to be you could walk into the post office and hang around a bit to see who came through, you know? Flirt with some hotties before their yoga class. Find out who’s sick, who’s travelin’ to where, who got drunk and fell off their stool at Slim’s or Bortell’s.

Yeah.

Used to be you could walk the dog or the wife or just walk yourself and not wonder who might drive by and pretend they don’t notice you.

Okay…

Used to be regular schmucks like you and me outnumbered the lawyers at city commission meetings.

I’ll agree with that one.

Used to be folks didn’t mind giving a little of their time to a city board or committee, and weren’t worrying about being sued or subpoeneed.

Subpoen-uh-d.

Huh?

Subpoen-uh-d, not “ee-d”.

Right, that too. C’mon, you know what I mean, man.

I think I do. Place is going through a nasty little hiccup lately.

Hiccup? You call this a frikkin’ hiccup? You know that pickle-ball guy, the new candidate for mayor with the big smile and the beard who qualified on the last day?

Yeah, but what the hell is pickle ball?

It’s like paddle ball only it’s not paddle ball. It’s pickle ball. With a paddle.

Oh yeah, that explains it.

You play on a tennis cour...anyway, a couple of local ladies were helping with his campaign and there’s that PAR guy tailing them around town like he’s outta some dog-eared Travis McGee paperback. What’s the deal with that?

Well, he lives here too. But creepy, for sure.

Ya think? They had to get someone to escort them to their car! Then, the same day the same guy files some bizarro police report swearing under oath that a certain city commissioner, guess who, said something to someone else that hurt his feelings…from across a crowded dang bar. Are you kidding me?

Maybe it did hurt his feelings.

Yeah right. He filed the report nine days after he says it happened, the same day he trailed those ladies around the island and then into Bradenton when they got the pickle ball guy qualified, and coincidentally, the same day the guess-who commissioner also qualified to run to keep his seat on the city commission.

And just in time, I’ll bet, to sneak the story to the local press before the weekend deadline.

Yep, now you’re getting the picture.

But why the chip on your shoulder? He ain’t trackin’ your scent around town, not that it’d be particularly difficult.

Hilarious. It’s just all so…so…yucky. So minor league, you know? His snippy lawyers and straw-man convict. His court reporters and videographers. Lawsuits and intimidation and bullying. And now shadowing citizens and filing dubious police reports. We’re better than that. It’s why we live here. And it wasn’t that way just a few years ago. Coincidence?

Probably not but he’s just one guy.

Yeah, that’s what I thought, just one guy. But it’s like it’s contagious, man. What about the fiasco that recall thing has become. This time another guy decided to play Perry Mason and filed what was essentially a high school home work assignment that sent the city into a five month steel cage match. Recall tents, clipboard posses, more bullying and intimidation to sign the damn thing.

The guy got the signatures he needed.

Yes, he did.

Twice.

Yep. And he got a lot of face time in the press and said a lot of things about citizen responsibility and democratic duty. Whipped his posse and the press into a frenzy of righteous indignation, sure enough.

Yeah, he sure lead that charge.

Ahhh…yeah. Then at crunch time, when he actually had to face a Judge and put that democratic duty and flag waving rhetoric where his mouth is, he bailed.

Bailed?

No showed to the recall hearing.

Wait. Was the other guy there? The one he’s trying to throw out?

Of course. So was the City Clerk and the Elections Office guy. And forty or so citizens, four commissioners, two new candidates for office, four lawyers, one convict, four reporters and even an editor. But no Chief Recaller. Minor league.

What the…? So what’d the Judge do?

Listened for three hours and then said we’d hear from him soon.

When’s soon?

Obviously not within a week since it’s been that long already.

When’s his deadline?

Doesn’t have one but I suppose the Election Office guy wants him to get it done before the recall election scheduled for September 7th. Absentee ballots are already out and I’ll bet some have already been sent back. Seems the closer it gets the more money gets wasted getting ready for it if it turns out it doesn’t happen.

You mean if the Judge throws it out?

Yeah.

That gonna happen?

Could...well, make that should. But that’s why he’s a Judge and we’re here eating grits and two over medium. You want that bacon?

Take it. Frankly no matter how you feel about it seems the best thing could happen would be for it to go away so folks can concentrate on the real election, the one for mayor.

We’ll all have to learn how to play pickle ball when that guy with the big smile wins.

Better’n lawsuits and recalls.

Well said.

See you tomorrow.

Yeah, tomorrow.


© 2010 – William L. Yanger