I had to drive to Savannah the other day. The result is a list of things I’d rather do than drive into Savannah. I could make this list longer, but I’m running out of time.
1. Eat a bug. Seriously.
2. Serve on a school board. Note: Come to think of it, I’d rather eat a bug than serve on a school board. Scratch that one.
3. Drive in, near, around or in the same zip code as Pooler. Even pro-growth elected officials look at Pooler and say, “ouch.”
4. Sit through 11 light changes (and a dozen rotating electronic billboard ads) at the 144/17 intersection in Richmond Hill.
5. Run for Congress. It’s a step down in esteem from being a weekly newspaper hack editor, even if the pay is about 100 times better. Plus, if I got elected I’d be stuck in the same capitol as that Congressman from Florida who looks like an evil Donny Osmond.
6. Attend a breakfast full of speeches by elected or appointed officials. These breakfasts usually go by names like “grits and government” or “eggs and issues.” They start way too early, for one thing, for my liking. Better to back the time up a couple hours and call them “brunch and baloney.”
7. Get a colonoscopy. In my front yard. With my neighbor making sure the doctor A) didn’t overcharge me for happy gas, and B) didn’t leave any tools behind.
8. Drive a school bus. This one was close. Close as in this becoming a list about things I’d rather do instead of driving a school bus. I know a former Green Beret who drove a school bus around Richmond Hill for a bit. It cured him of ever wanting to drive a school bus again. Kids can be a pain, but it’s parents and the traffic that winds up giving you Tourette’s Syndrome.
9. Hang out on Community Facebook pages. I gave up going on Facebook years ago after it confirmed something I was taught early on. Namely, everyone can do a job better than the poor person trying to do it.
I.e., everyone can coach the team better than the local high school coach.
They can run the city better than the city council.
They can police the town better than the police chief.
They can run the school system better than the superintendent.
And they can edit the paper better than the editor.
Granted, you won’t get much argument from me about the last one.
10: Here’s a start on something I’ve been kicking around for a while. I don’t know what to call it, other than done for the day.
There, you see, over yon, sits the hack editor alone on a Tuesday night at the World Headquarters of the Bryan County News, conveniently located in the cubicle between the Richmond Hill Swim Club and Luxe Real Estate – both respectable businesses that have nothing to do with this column.
The editor there seated is a seedy, dilapidated looking sort who was probably washed and dried on the wrong setting. He looks like chewed dryer lint. It is a wonder he has a wife and mother who love him.
The editor has an enormous head – hat size 7-9/8 – that tends to sunburn and ears that will not wiggle, no matter how hard he tried to make them in Army basic training almost four decades ago when he found out he was allergic to drill sergeants. This was before social media. The South was about 200 million transplants fewer back then. We didn’t know how bad we had it.
That however, is a digression. The enormous head sits atop a large belly and skinny sawed-off legs, and the ears on the enormous head are listening to Buck Owens and the Buckaroos and Miles Davis.
They are listening without headphones, because the ones at the office are not enormous enough to go around the enormous head, which in truth houses an enormous but under-utilized brain. It is a Pinky and the Brain sized Brain. It thinks thoughts.
Thoughts such as whether the owner of the brain, also known as the hack editor, is reporting enough on Hyundai, THE BIGGEST STORY IN THE UNIVERSE, and whether there will be enough infrastructure and schools and houses and bus stops and deputies and firefighters and fishing ponds and boat ramps and apartments and parking lots and convenience stores and supermarkets and Walmarts and Lowe’s and liquor stores and cafes and coffee shops and beauty shops and botox clinics and all the rest of the essential part and parcel of 21st Century Life, to include drones and social media.
Probably not.
The editor will get right on it.