Jeff Whitten, Columnist.

Welcome to another installment of the Pembroke Mafia Football League, and here’s hoping you’re hanging in there and enjoying the weirdness – because life, in all its infinite varieties, is definitely rolling downhill into some strange territory.

Or maybe life as we know it has always been bizarre when lived in the moment, and we modern day thinkers suffer from what sportscasters call recency bias, thus tending to rate our times dumber than any in recorded history.

How else to explain, well, anything – from the rash of man bun hairstyles (hahaha) to people shopping in their pajamas?

Or Weird Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, who apparently thinks “they” controlled the weather into spinning up Helene, or some such something apparently only liberals can figure out how to do.

In the interests of being even-handed, there are also weird Democrats, including the cat running for VP. They’re not nearly as funny, though.

But there does seem to be this “three name thing” going on among those “look at me and what I’m doing” types who evidently run for office for attention, because the GOP has MTG and the Dems have AOC, which is short for Rep. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez.

In the end, though, look at their eyes. If their eyes got a weird light in them, don’t make eye contact. Just drive away.

Note: This is a public service announcement. The following sentence weighs in at 79 words without a period.

While some of us naturally tend to blame loud obnoxious yankees for all of life’s problems in today’s South, it’s important to remember only a few years ago Richmond Hill grocery stores were filled to the brim with women and the occasional dude clad in various types of spandex getups (and some of them should’ve opted for mu-mus, at a minimum), all dayglow pinks and running shoes, as if bouncing down aisles and loading up a buggy with overpriced organic foodstuffs somehow constituted a workout.

Note: In truth, 79 words is nothing compared to a lede – that’s newspaper talk for the first sentence in a story – once unleashed on the universe by the great peanut proponent Tyron Spearman.

Spearman, by the way, is a member of the Georgia Peanut Hall of Fame, and back in the early 2000s or maybe the late 1990s, he wrote a single sentence kicking off a story which ran on for 90-something words, with minimal punctuation (or none at all except the period at the end) as I recall.

I hung on to a copy of the paper (a peanut trade publication, I think) in which it appeared for years, amazed by the audacity of going long-winded in an age when the ideal lede was supposed to be about 25 words. It was literally breathtaking when you tried to read Tyron’s opening sentence out loud.

You got winded, is what you got.

We didn’t have a PMFL last week because many of us didn’t have power to watch football. But we’re a resilient bunch, us Pembroke Mafia Football League members. Survivors, not victims. And our fearless leader, Rear Admiral Petty Officer (Ret) B.J. Clark, likes to wear spandex skivvies when he shops. But then he never changes clothes, so he wears spandex when he isn’t shopping, too, and is instead hiding in the bushes trying to sneak up on birds.

Standings:

B.J., who keeps score, is tied with District 1 Commissioner Noah Covington for first with only 13 misses so far. Noah, as you may know, is a great human being. He is getting out of local politics to get into the new sport of goat toting as commissioner of the new Pembroke Mafia Goat Toting League, because, well, someone has to do it. Stay tuned right here for all the news on toted goats you’ll ever need.

In second with 14 misses is the peerless Rev. Lawrence Butler, our spiritual advisor and the only of us who has his own church. Amen and pass the goat.

Try to make it spiral.

District 5 county commissioner Dr. Gene Wallace, DMD, FDIC, HTTPS and ETC, is in a tie with County Administrator Ben “Pocket Rocket” Taylor for third, with 15 misses. Ben is famous for his ability to outthink, outswim and outfight anybody of comparable 4-foot-8 size in the universe.

Mike “Groupie Magnet” Clark, the only one of us who could get away with wearing spandex in public, is in fourth with 16 misses. Mike Brown, the world’s oldest living sportswriter still practicing the arcane art of writing sports, is in – oops, wait. Mike Brown is in fourth with 16 misses, and Mike Clark is in fifth with 17 misses.

Sorry, I read the email wrong. But then, if anybody can send an email that looks like it was written in Chinese by a drunk squirrel it’s B.J. That sort of spycraft is how he fooled the Viet Cong back in the day.

In sixth are yours's truly and award-winning journalist Ted O’Neil with 18 misses to date. Ted is from Michigan. You could tell because when he worked at the BCN – that’s short for Bryan County News, all reputable papers do that – Ted kept the office air conditioner at 45 and complained about how hot it was.

In seventh is soon-to-be District 1 County Commissioner Alex “Pretty Boy” Floyd, who is plotting something onerous involving trees and tap in fees, while County Commission Chairman Carter “Pius Pontifaxius Perspex, or old PPP” Infinger is in eighth and retired fire chief Freddy Howell is in last, overtaking Carter on the strength of his (Freddy’s) record-setting 10 miss week.

Holy Smokes. Or, as Freddy would say, “Daggum it! Shoot far! Sumbiscuits!!”

This week’s games:

• Mississippi State at UGA: I take Mississippi State. Yep, I’m dumb, but I don’t like UGA. Everybody else takes the Pups.

• Florida at Tennessee: I’m dumb again, taking Florida whilst the rest of our hale crew takes the Volunteers. I figure the Gators gotta win sometime, and Tennessee looked beatable at Arkansas.

• Purdue at Illinois: Mike Clark, Noah, Alex and the Infinger choose the Boilermakers.

• Kansas State at Colorado: B.J. the Rev. Lawrence, me, Ted, Dr.

Gene, Carter and Freddy take the Buffaloes. That’s Prime, baby, now pass the cowboy hat and shades.

• South Carolina vs. Bammer: I’m all by lonesome on this and am picking the real USC to upset Bama. But then I’m used to suffering.

• Stanford at Notre Dame: Alex, who knows less about football than anything else on the planet, takes Stanford, which is one of those places smart people who don’t care about football go.

Unlike those places where smart people don’t go, like UGA. Or Clemson. Or Ohio State.

• Coastal Carolina at James Madison: True story, I went to Coastal for a semester back in my wayward misspent youth. Mostly, I went to the beach. Anyhow, Carter, Freddy and yours truly are picking the Chanticleers to GATA.

• Air Force at New Mexico: Me and Ted take the Lobos.

• Marshall at Georgia Southern:

Even Mike Brown, a Marshall alumnite, takes the Iggles, so it’s unanimous. GATA.

It’s a wrap. Here’s hoping you are doing well and remembering to renew your subscription to the BCN or another local paper of your choice. Remember to be nice to kids, old people and animals.

Now retired, Jeff Whitten was previously the managing editor of the Bryan County News. Go Dawgs! (This message was brought to you by the current editor, who loves being a nuisance, like most Georgia grads.