Rolling Stops

It ended up being the Sunday that I wanted ... quiet, laid back, music and grilled chops and sausage. Goddess got walks and we took bicycle rides. The girls watched Mama Mia and laughed while I puttered around the kitchen. We made our way to Shirley Sessions at Doc's Bar for "The Girlfriend's" performance which is always a lot of fun.

Shirley's running for Mayor.

Politicians were everywhere yesterday either running to or from office. You couldn't swing a dead feral cat without hitting one. They showed up at the Bored meeting, the daily celebration of life on Tybee Island. They attended Shirley's event even though it was Shirley's event and not their own ... hmmm ... perhaps all Politicians cannot afford their own events and Shirley is being magnanimous about it all.

After spending all of their money on signs, a lot of these poor politicians may not have anything left over for events. As you may know, politicians on Tybee love signs and encourages their utilization. After two other towns went out of business Tybee purchased all of their stop signs and the island has more per capita than any other organized community in all of North America, eastern and western Europe, most of China and Russia.

It is a sad waste of the utilization of signs.

Recycling expert and former politician Johnny O has made a novel contribution to this year's election. He has obtained all of the signs that had been used in previous elections and placed them in his yard. No one currently running for anything has a sign there. All of the signs are the unelected, dead, and decomposing politicians.

He is currently searching for the most obscure, hard-to-find and rarest of all Tybee political signs ... the "Whitley Reynolds" sign. According to ancient history only remembered by Roma, Gloria the Bird Lady (nice finger!) and Nicki Alexander ... Whitley Reynolds once ran for city council and actually won! He proudly served for ten minutes and has never been heard from politically again! Some doubt his actual existence but his ghost can be seen pedaling a drunken bicycle on most nights or eerily sitting at the counter of the Breakfast Club before the doors are unlocked and customers are allowed inside.

But in Whitley is kind of like believing that there non-feral cats on the island. It's crazy.

Back when Johnny O last ran for City Council they sponsored "Ask the Candidate Night" so I showed up because I wanted to ask him something.

He looked good. Brill-cream in his hair, nice suit with really wide tie left over from the 1970s, I think he was even sucking on a peppermint. He was giving it his all.

"I need to ask you something," I said.

"Get the hell away from me," he said.

"What?" I cleverly responded. "It's ask the candidate night."

"Get the hell away from me!" he shouted.

The entire audience of fifteen people witnessed this and, of course, John lost.

The point is ... if you're running for office and I ask you a question ... you sure as hell better answer it ... in public.

So yesterday I met John Somebody-with-no-vowels-in-his-last-name-at-all who running for something. I wanted to buy a vowel but nobody was offering.

Then at Shirley's thing, I met Monty Parks ... who I think used to be a game show host. He was styling though with his open Hawaiian flashing a white chest, shorts, and saddles with socks. He's a nice guy who does nice things. He knew my name. I didn't have any questions for him because Sandy McCloud was lusting after me from the stage and couldn't take her eyes off of me.

So I walked up to Shirley. "Which game show was Monty Parks host of?"

Shirley said, "Get the hell away from me!"

So we came home, grilled, sat on the beloved back deck, listened to music, watched Rocky rise the dead, danced to the incredible deep lyrics of ABBA ... ignoring Stop Signs ... and politicians.

{ P.S. Julia Pierce was kicked out of a food bank for wearing a political shirt to it. Tybee has a thing against shirts. Had she not been wearing one it all would have been fine. Or ... if it was a sign.]