The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

I love a good holiday as much as the next yahoo … but c’mon, this Groundhog’s Day business, let’s be honest, the Chamber of Commerce out there in Pullmyleg, Pennsylvania has pulled a fast one on those of us who take meteorologic prediction seriously. Down here on the convergence zoned South End, No Way is a groundhog going to see his shadow on Feb. 2nd. Even if we had groundhogs! This thing just gives Science a bad name. And lately, the last thing it needs in these superstitious, Mayan Calendar, end-of-the-world times is a black eye over some mammalian hairball on the East Coast seeing its hairball shadow (or not) and then extrapolating that to El Nino or asteroid strikes on Wall Street or global warming.
Which is precisely why some of the more empirically minded boyz down at the Mabana Body Shop have been searching, in a deductive sort of methodology, an alternative Predictor of winter longevity. Hellfire, if winter’s just going to last until April, we figure there’s no point in fighting serious incentive-reducing Inevitability. We’ll just pull the covers up, collect unemployment and wait for spring. This is how civilizations thrive: they figure out tides and seasons for planting schedules and harvest times and happy hours.
The model the boyz constructed over the past decade or so is a local paradigm that utilizes a 5 gallon polyethylene bucket of fresh caught Dungeness crabs —- I KNOW you’re going to point out they’re illegal this time of season, but listen, we’re putting em back when the data is collected. Spirit of the Law, if not the Letter and that, in a clamshell is the very essence of the South End Way. —- So you got a pail of clacking claws and now you bring out a dog, any dog, any breed, random sampling, see? And you let the pooch check out the crustaceans. No shadows, no hibernating drowsy marmots. And if the crab gets a lock on Snoopy’s snout, voila, studies have shown that is a true omen of an early spring. The dog schnozz slips the noose, 6 more weeks of sleeping in.
Simple. Like Einstein says, the more elegant the theory, the higher the probability it’s correct. And the boyz down at the body shop will tell you, the accuracy here is in the 90 percentile range, statistically astounding. We’re not claiming, like those unabashed self-promoters in Pennsylvania, that this will predict spring for the entire country, but for all us Left Coasters, rest assured, Feb 2nd now has science as its bedrock foundation. We’ll leave it to the South End Chamber of Commerce how they want to capitalize on it. Crab Dog Day. Nice profitable ring to it, don’t you think, kind of like a cash register. If we can keep PETA at bay….

In between playoff football games the talk down at the Pilot House Lounge usually turns to politics. These days, even during the games…. The other evening Bobby, the night bartender, had the TV turned to CNN at the request of the Vandiver Brothers who had wearied of the hockey game on ESPN. “Puck this, Bob! How about some news instead of this stupid game with teams we never heard of.” Bob’s a little new to the Lounge scene, a recent hire, and so he acquiesced, not realizing, I guess, he might as well have tossed a Roman Candle in the middle of the bar and yelled Fire!

The channel couldn’t have been switched more than 30 seconds before Wally, seeing a newscrawl about Trump firing his attorney general over his new immigration policy, went ballistic. “That stupid %#@!!*$” he hollered, “What terrorists does he think he’s keeping out?” From the back corner, Little Jimmy fired back, “The Muslims, that’s who!” If this had been Tombstone circa 1880, tables would’ve been overturned, the mirror shot out, bottles broken over drunken heads, the pandemonium spreading into the street outside, panicking the horses. It would’ve taken the Marshall to restore order, haul a few of the cowpokes to the hoosegow, maybe even lynch one or two.

But … this was the Pilot Lounge, and while it isn’t a bastion of civility in these decidedly uncivil times on the wild wild South End, violence is pretty much verbal and even occasionally regretted in the sober light of the following day. The argument went from banning Muslims from a few countries to letting Belgium and France immigrate, sides forming in the bar and the shouting making it impossible to carry any one argument to a logical conclusion. Finally it was Bob who shouted for order, swearing to cut everyone off if they didn’t shut the *%$#! UP!! Like I said, Bob was new and didn’t really understand the Rules of the Lounge. Course, who does?

But one of them is this: the bartender does not take a side. Not once, not slightly, not ever. Bob said to the suddenly quiet room, his threat to curtail their Monday night drinking effective as a punch to the gut, “I’ll tell you something about Extreme Vetting. Forget the damn Muslims, forget that. Forget even vetting the President. He never showed anybody any tax returns. You haven’t got a clue what he’s going to do. Nobody knows and maybe nobody cares. Just vote the man into office and see what happens. Vetting? Cripes! But here’s some Exteme Vetting for tonight. One more word from anybody about politics and I’m 86’ing you. You can go home and argue with your wife.” And with that Bob turned the hockey game back on and the sound way up. “Now,” he said, “who needs a refill?”

I don’t remember who won the game and I doubt anyone else did either. But we chose up sides and rooted for one team or the other. I hope I never watch another hockey game as long as I live.