Jeff Whitten, Columnist.
Welcome to another installment of the Pembroke Mafia Bait, Tackle and Beer Football League, or PM+BT+BFL for short, and just so you know, we’ve been going at this football picks column thing for quite some time, which is many, many, many years – eons, even, or almost as long as the current election cycle.
You know, the one that apparently got started about the time of hanging chads, Al Gore and George W. Bush.
But before we get started on this week’s go-round through the wonderful world of college football, pardon this rather long-winded whine prompted by the arrival in my wife’s mailbox Tuesday of another bunch of political mailers.
And, real quick, my thoughts on this are my own and nobody else’s. Our PM+BT+BFL membership is a dynamic and eclectic bunch of mostly old white men with varying views on politics and life and Clemson and wives and pickups which rarely agree with mine. But we still get along, bless our hearts. Also, feel free to skip ahead to the part about football. It won’t hurt my feelings.
Back to the mailers: This particular set was from folks on the right, i.e., Republicans, and essentially told us our votes are public record and people are watching us. The image on one side of one of them even has a nosey old bat with a pair of binoculars looking out at our name and address.
In fairness, it did say who we vote for is up to us, but apparently we better vote or else our neighbors will get after us. Similarly, I’ve gotten a bunch of spam texts from liberal Democrat-types telling me I haven’t voted yet, etc., and that’s also kind of creepy. Apparently, they not only don’t think I know there’s an election, they got hold of my phone number.
To me it’s another sign our major political parties are becoming more in-yourface- cult-like every day, and it’s getting weird.
And freaky, too. And I don’t care who you vote for, but if Vice President Kamala Harris had gone on stage at a political rally and danced for half an hour or started cussing out her opponent, the perpetually offended and shellacked and varnished harridans on Fox News would’ve spontaneously combusted.
Still, it’s a free world (at least for now), and for those who blame candidates on the other side of their side for being a threat to democracy, all I can say is that wouldn’t be the case on either side if people just quit voting for major party candidates.
Some folks in my misbegotten youth used to blame certain famous heavy metal rock and roll bands for trying to conjure up the devil, but if nobody had bought their records they’d have been just a bunch of hairy headbangers in weird clothes who wrote stupid songs. Note: I suspect if any of them actually conjured up the devil, then we would’ve seen it on TV.
Alas, what I’m trying to get at is the candidates we get are the symptom of a larger problem, not the problem, exactly. Or, as Walt Kelly’s Pogo used to say, “we have met the enemy and he is us.”
Anyhow, I, and most folks I know, don’t care how you vote. Neither do I care if you don’t vote --- given our options these days, sitting out an election or two or three is understandable.
But it’s nobody’s visit who I, or you, vote for.
The mailers, meanwhile, are already where they belong. In the recycling bin, hopefully to get shredded and turned into something useful, like fishwrap or stuff we can use to wipe our bottoms.
There used to be a saying that you never talked politics or religion in polite company, and folks actually abided by that rule, just like they abided by election results. That train left the station a while back.
And since it has, I would say I’m going to write in a vote for Pedro and urge you to do the same, but I’m not sure people will get the reference to the movie ‘Napoleon Dynamite’ and, since folks are obviously watching to see if I vote, will instead think I’m advocating my tax dollars go to poor immigrants trying to build a better life for themselves rather than that weirdo silver-spoon beneficiary Elon Musk.
Which, come to think of it, doesn’t sound so bad.
Now for some football. Standings: District 1 County Commissioner Noah Covington is in first place with 16 misses; ol’ Noah, King of North Bryan, is relinquishing his seat on the county commission this year but you better believe he’s going to be a player. Word is Noah’s going to start training to be a synchronized swimmer – he’s like a furrier version of an otter in the water -- and represent Georgia when the Super Bowl comes back to Atlanta. He’s already ordered the Red and Black Speedos with the sparkly trim.
Right behind him is retired Navy Chief Petty Admiral B.J. Clark, the bossman of this outfit and head of the Pembroke American Legion Post 164’s North Bryan Navy and its fleet of pond boats. B.J. is also the only one of us who actually wrestled a Bigfoot. More on that story for Halloween if I don’t get fired for this column first. B.J. has 17 misses.
In third with 19 misses are Mike Brown, the world’s oldest living sportswriter, and Bryan County Administrator Ben Taylor. Ben is from Ashburn, the Fire Ant Capital of the World and home to the world famous Keith-A-Cue Barbecue. Having eaten some Keith-A-Cue myself, I can testify it’s not only delicious, it’ll take hair off your chest and remove carpet stains. Ben and Mike have 18 misses each.
Ted O’Neil, who looks like Teddy Roosevelt on stilts, is in fourth place with 19 misses. Ted used to be the newsroom at the Bryan County News and is now winning press awards up in Michigan like Georgia wins regular season football games.
Mike Clark, Dr. Gene Wallace and the Rev. Lawrence Butler are in fourth place with 20 misses so far. Suffice it to say Mike C. is the only one of us with groupies, and so what if they hit their prime about the time Bon Jovi was making hit cassette tapes. Gene is a Hall of Fame dentist and should have his own podcast about Richmond Hill before the builders got hold of it and turned it into a Facebook community page full of mad people from up north. The Rev. is the only one of us who has a church.
Enough said.
Retired Fire Chief Freddy Howell, who is from the Okefenokee, is in whatever place this is with 22 misses. “Sumgun,” Freddy said. “Dooterfeister moos swampapes! Run far cuz they likes nanner pudding and’ll taken aller urs.”
Alex Floyd, with 25 misses, is in seventh place. Alex, who is also named Paul, is the Commissioner-Elect for District 1. He’s also been a Pembroke city administrator, a Richmond Hill special projects manager and code enforcer, and is now an engineering inspector or something like that for a private public works company, and he’s married and has two kids and about 2.3 million pine trees. And he’s not yet 21, the slacker.
Right behind him is me, with 27 misses, and right behind me is Bryan County Commission Chairman Carter “Skippy the Tater Tot” Infinger with 28 misses. Both of us are from South Carolina, but only one of us has any couth. The other went to Newberry and roots for Clemson and not only likes the color orange, but all of a sudden is sort of orange.
This week’s games:
• Georgia Southern at Old Dominion: Only me and Ted take the Monarchs, and Ted copied my pick sheet this week.
• Notre Dame at the U.S. Navy: Mike Brown, the Rev. Lawrence, Ben, Freddy and Gene take the Irish.
• Tennessee at Houston: Clemson Carter takes Houston. And we thought he liked orange.
• Texas at Vandy: Carter strikes again. If it ain’t Clemson orange he pins back his ears and picks somebody else.
• Oklahoma at Ole Miss: Everybody goes with Lane Kiffin’s Rebels. Poor old Oklahoma and Texas are learning life in the SEC is a tad bit different than it was in whatever high school classification they used to play in.
• LSU at Texas A& M: Liturgical Larry, Mike Brown, Alex, me, Carter and Ted take the Aggies. Illinois at Oregon: Alex takes Illinois. That’s a yankee school.
• Michigan at Michigan State: Alex, both Mikes, Carter, Ben, Freddy and Gene the Lima Bean take the Wolverines.
• Mizzou at Bammer: Mike Brown takes the Tigers.
• Western Carolina at Mercer: Everybody’s taking Mercer.
Have a great weekend and if you go to the Seafood and Music Fest, or is it Music and Seafood Fest, take a copy of the Bryan County News, turn it to this page and then go find the person wearing the fuzzy shrimp suit and get a photo of him, you and the paper, and you could win a PMFL hat.
Now retired, Whitten is a former editor of the Bryan County News.