The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

A few days ago four zebras escaped from the truck they were being transported in just east of Seattle off Interstate 90 near North Bend. I guess they just didn’t care to move to a new home. Or being hauled in a trailer. Three were rounded up pretty quick with the help of a passing retired rodeo clown and no, I didn’t make this up. But the fourth one is still on the lam, surprising, since a zebra is about the most recognizable animal on earth.

Needless to say, this was the top story on the evening news and even made the New York Times. Trump, Gaza, Stormy Daniels — all of em took a backseat to the missing mammal loose on the interstate savannahs up toward the Cascades. No amber alerts for the black and white striped renegade. Probably more needed in the future. But so far our escapee has eluded capture days later.

I suspect the TikTokkers have already started streaming. Zebra influencers galore. And the Go Fund Me folks are collecting donations to save little Zeebo. African trackers will be flown in, the national press will fly in too. Call it a media circus and you’d be spot, or stripe on. Nevertheless it’s a welcome diversion from the old media circus and I for one thank this creature for taking the spotlight and running with it.

For a few memorable years we had the Barefoot Bandit, a neighbor kid who outsmarted and out ran the local cops, the State Patrol and the FBI. He became our local hero although there were neighbors here who proclaimed publicly they wanted him caught or killed. Most of us South Enders were rooting for the Kid. He never hurt anyone, mostly just stole food and supplies and, well, okay, an airplane or three. You sort of have to root for the underdog in an age of cellphone tracking, credit card locating, security cameras, Amber Alerts and the ubiquitous government surveillance. C’mon, he was our Jesse James, our Robin Hood, our Billy the Kid — you always gonna root for the Powerful?

I’m rooting for Zeebo! At least he’ll get a few days of freedom. And maybe some fellow sympathizer will find him grazing the flower garden and give him sanctuary. We got a shed ready just in case he finds his way down here. We can always use another Legend….

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In case you aren’t keeping up on the latest Barefoot Bandit sightings, the Kid has been back here on the South End for half a year. He served his time in a federal prison and was released last winter. We all – okay, most of us down here – wished the Kid well, hoping his stint behind bars would give him time to consider his options as an adult, maybe go back to college, find a trade in his beloved aviation field. The boy always dreamed of flying.

When one of his benefactors moved away, they gave Colton the power of attorney to sell their homestead south of Tyee Store. He booted out their mom and her husband, plus the disabled guy living in a trailer off in the woods. Kind of harsh, some said, but hey, he was in charge of putting the acreage and houses on the island’s hot real estate market. Furniture and debris got piled into a small mountain, ready for a match. He waited until the drought made fires, any fires, a threat to the neighbors, then he torched it.

Guitar Bob is the closest neighbor, his property adjoining the Kid’s. He tried explaining his concern, but was pretty much ignored and anyway, the fire was lit. In more ways than one. Colton had a sign at the entrance to the driveway. It explained how anyone trespassing past that sign would be shot. His mom had one just like it back in the heady days when Colton was on the run and she wearied of international reporters knocking on her trailer door. Guitar Bob figured the sign was mostly smoke. ‘The Kid’s a felon,’ he said, ‘illegal to even own a weapon.’ Much less use it on trespassers.

Bob is pretty much a live and let live kind of South Ender. He and his dog Maynard G. mostly just want to be left the hell alone and so he could sympathize with the Bandit’s ornery warning. Bob doesn’t put up warning signs, but like I said, he lives with his dog, which is warning enough. What the Kid does, he figures, is his own damn bizness.

You know, until he decides to run his table saw at 12:30 in the morning. Like a lot of us, Bob sleeps about then. Or tries to. But the saw is only a hundred feet from his bedroom and if you’ve ever tried to snooze with a lawnmower or a chainsaw or a table saw running high rev, you know sleep isn’t in the cards. So Bob got up, grumpy no doubt, put on his pants and a pair of shoes, then wandered through the hole in the fence behind his place and over to where the Kid was doing a little midnight woodworking. Bob is in his 70’s, not exactly in fighting shape, but I have no doubt he cast a menacing shadow in the doorway of that shop, forget the bullshit warning about getting shot for trespassing. Bob asked the Kid what the hell he thought he was doing.

What he thought he was doing was some woodworking late at night. Didn’t think anyone would mind. It is, after all, the South End, not exactly heavily populated. ‘Was I bothering you?’ Oh yeah, he was bothering Bob, Bob made that very clear. He might be an old timer, but he’s an ornery old timer and if you know Bob like I know Bob, you know once he’s pissed off, he’s not backing up. I suspect Colton met a few Bobs in the federal prison, recognized the type and apologized. He explained he liked to work late at night. Bob explained he liked to sleep late at night. And so in the wee hours, they came to an understanding.

The next day the Kid dropped by with a gift card to the local grocery in Stanwoodopolis. Bob considered it briefly, then handed it back. “Give it to someone who needs it,’ he said. ‘Just give me a little peace and quiet, we’ll get along fine.’ And so, once again the South End settled into a calm before the next storm, no lives lost, no harm done. Personally, and this is just me, I think the Kid should go back to school.

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These are tough times for us poor souls who are tasked every year to come up with an April Fool’s joke to slip past the gullible, the unsuspecting and the literal. What is a satirist supposed to do when every day is April Fool’s Day in the Land of the Free, Home of the Brave? Everything now is labeled Faux News, true or not, outrageous or not, phony or not. People believe what they want to believe and what they don’t, fake news!

The President had multiple affairs with Playboy models! Fake news! The Russians hacked and trolled the 2016 elections! Ho ho, all lies! Largest crowd ever at the Inauguration! Melania Trump entered the country on an Einstein Visa! What? You don’t believe it? We’re winning the war in Afghanistan another year! The economy is the greatest it’s ever been! Hillary Clinton was a traitor! The Trump kids are Martians!! Strange electric beams of energy have been seen emanating at night from the Washington Monument!!! Camano Island has voted to become a Sanctuary City!!!! Amazon is planning to take over the world!!!!! The Bots are coming, the Bots are coming!!!!!!!

If we now feel like Alice in Wonderland where up is down and right is wrong, how in the world do we sucker in the unsuspecting with some cockamamie story that sounds plausible but is actually a total fabrication when everything now is either a fabrication masquerading as truth or is a truth deemed phony baloney. Nobody tries to keep up with the lies anymore, we just take them for granted as part of the political landscape. The more outrageous the whopper the better, all part of the reality TV show we now live in. Every day is April Fool’s Day, but it’s harder and harder to know who the Fool is.

Down here on the cynical South End, sadly, we’ve grown accustomed to the Weird and the Fabulous. Reality has grown fangs and claws. Our neighbor was murdered and beheaded last week off Tamarack Lane. Faux news? I don’t think so. An underground bunker stocked with guns and ammo was hidden beneath a camouflaged hatch cover on the same property. Fake news? Don’t kid yourself. A killer is on the loose, our heroin thief is back and, I fool you not, so is the Barefoot Bandit. Phony news? Go ask Alice … when she’s ten feet tall. Meanwhile, Happy April Fool! And Colton, welcome back, Kid! We missed ya! And good luck on a new start. Seriously.

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