Hmmm. Do you go to read my column each
week wondering, “Gawd. I wonder what sort of mood he's in today. I
hope it isn't like when he found out he had two spleens. We're still
dealing with the fallout from that one.”
Actually, I've decided, for me at
least, because I read these columns too, you know, it's like the old
television show, “Maverick.” Growing up as a kid in Scotland, I
always loved that show, still do as a matter of fact. But I always
liked the ones with James Garner just a little bit more. Probably
because they usually (Tom) mixed in some humor. Cheyenne, The Lawman,
Bronco and most of the other Warner Brothers westerns that dominated
TV at the time were many things- funny wasn't really one of them.
So, I was looking at MSN the other day
and a picture of presidential hopeful Ted Cruz caught my eye. He had
his arms spread out in a supplicating gesture and, for whatever
reason, it reminded me of the comedian who said, “My mother always
liked to encourage me, and one of her favorite things to say was that
anyone could grow up to be president. I look around and see that she
was right.”
But, I have no wish to get political, I
have enough to deal with. It just reminded me of an incident in my
young newspaper editor days where I came close to being put in jail
for calling a town justice by his first name. Really. And his first
name was jackass, or poophead or anything. It was Jack (not his real
name)..
First a question. Do you think you've
spent more time this long, lousy winter reminiscing than usual? I
mean, what else could you do, right? It was just soooo cold. Sure, it
didn't deter ice fishermen, as far as I could see. But, c'mon, ice
fishermen? Is that how you want to measure the severity of winter?
Don't get me wrong, plenty of our friends are ice fishermen. Love
'em, but the fact that they have to cut a hole in the “water”
before they can even start? Enough said.
Anyway, I had an instant recall- I
don't even think it was reminiscing- when I saw that photo of Ted
Cruz.
About 40 years ago, shortly after the
unceremonious end of my career as a rock and roll disc jockey, and
just as my career in journalism was off to a shaky start, I was in
the town hall of one of the municipalities I covered when one of the
town justices came up to me, took me by the arm (a gesture I truly
hate), pulled me to one side and confidentially told me, “I'm not
running for town supervisor this fall.”
I was underwhelmed. The election was
months away and over 30, 000 other people weren't running for
supervisor either, so I said, “Thanks, Jack,” and that was the
last I thought of it until about two months later.
I was right in the heart of the town
hall, surrounded by the assessors office, tax collector and and town
clerk offices, and the police department, at a sort of four way
intersection.
Jack comes running- yes, running- at me
and demands to know why I didn't put his announcement in the paper. I
gave him the too early-30,000 people argument and he started yelling,
screaming and spitting on me.
His arguments started with, “Who do
you think you are,” never a good start in my experience, hit on how
young I was (24-ish), and how little I knew (OK, so he got that one
right). And then it got nasty (ha ha). I don't know if he'd gone a
little crazy, or anything, but, if that wasn't crazy, then crazy is
something I never want to see.
So, I'm standing there and he's
yelling, spitting, insulting me, and I noticed most of the people
around us, though pretending to still be working, were all leaning
their heads in our direction. I took it for a while, and as he
started to repeat himself, I tried to wrap up the conversation.
“Look, Jack...” And that's as far
as I got.
“That's another thing,” he screamed
(screamed!). “From now on that's Justice Nothisrealname to you.”
Well, that seemed to have brought us to the last stop on the crazy
train, so I simply said, “Look, Jack,” admittedly curious as to
what would happen next.
“You're under arrest.” As God is my
witness, those were the next words out of his mouth. “You're under
arrest.” I said the obvious: “For what?”
“Harassing a town justice, “ Jack
said, and ran off to get the chief of police. When they got back, I
said what I thought was the new obvious: “Go ahead. Arrest me. Just
know that my one phone call will be to our photographer to have him
come out and take a picture of me raking my tin cup across the iron
bars of my cell.”
No arrests were made and it sort of
fizzled out after that, sadly. Years letter Jack was in the news for
being involved in some malfeasance involving thousands of dollars in
court funds.
I hadn't thought about that incident in
years, believe it or not, but I wouldn't put it in the book as a
cancer-inspired recall or even the result of becoming older. I just
think crazy has a long shelf life and this had been sitting there,
waiting to be dragged out and since everything around it was frozen
shut, out it came. Wow, huh?
There are a variety of versions
of the story that gives this blog its name. The pony is the
constant in all of them. A man is on his way to a party when he
comes across a young boy shoveling ass over tea kettle at an
enormous mountain of manure. The man asks the child if he wouldn't
rather go with him to the party than shovel all that poop. The kid
says, “No way man. With all that poop... there must be a pony in
there somewhere
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