The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

Back when the Stanwoodopolis Gazette was still, more or less, a viable newspaper — even if it only published once a week — I thought it would add some zest to the Letter to the Editor to run myself, Skeeter Daddle, for Island County Commissioner. Don’t get me wrong, I hadn’t developed dreams of grandeur or plans to use my influence for personal profit, maybe hold the office for a term, run for the Senate, all stepping stones to the White House and immense wealth. Sure, okay, I had been asked by some politico in Island County politics at some event if I was indeed the infamous Skeeter D., and when I mistakenly admitted that yes, I was the very same, she asked if I would consider throwing my hat in the ring for Commish.

Anyone who knows me would break down in tears of mirth at the idea of my battered hat tossed into the political arena. Which may or may not have anything whatsoever to do with my deteriorating hat. As I told the good charwoman, if nominated, I would not run, if elected, I would accept the salary … but no, Skeeter was not the standard bearer she was hoping for.

Nevertheless, it put the idea in my head to send letters to the editor, John, a friend of mine who took my bus driving route years prior, some supporting my candidacy whole heartedly, and the following week, some apoplectic that anyone in their right mind would consider voting for this total moron. John could see where this was headed by the second or third letter, a pitched battle on the editorial page for and against a candidate who wasn’t actually running for any office.

“We have a policy to run every letter,” he explained sadly over the phone. “But this will only cause confusion and mistrust. I’m asking you to cease and desist. Please.”

As the sort of guy who would take an inch and stretch it into a kilometer, I hated to drop the hilarity, April Fools every week. But I did. Looking back all these years, pre-Fox News, bogus social media, fake journalism, all I can say is I was man ahead of my times. Just didn’t have enough sense to monetize my prescience….

Make Island County Okay Again, that’s my slogan.  And Make America shut up for awhile and pay attention to what’s really important.  My god, quit checking Facebooks and Instagrams and read a damn newspaper.  Today, in mine, there was a letter to the editor about our candidate for commissioner saying it was time to elect a man for the office, too many women commissioners lately and ours was ‘an evil woman.’  Don’t you just hate evil women?  The only thing I hate more than the satanic witches is the guys who want to burn them at the stake … for being a woman.  Sure, vote Neanderthal.

I ran for commissioner once.  Okay, I ran as a lark.  Wrote letters to the editor for and against myself until John Dean, the editor of the Stanwoodopolis Gazette, called to ask me politely to cease and desist.  ‘Hard for folks to tell what’s real and what’s not,’ he told me.  Wow, think of that, a time before fake news and hard journalism morphed into one and the same.  John was prescient, I guess, but that finger in the dike didn’t stop the flood that’s broken through in these misinformed times.  With some reluctance, I agreed to quit the field, fetch my hat from the ring and slink back into the nettle wilderness from whence I’d come.  John, however, caught the bug, ran for commissioner and won.  At least til the Tea Party candidate beat him the next cycle.

This misogynistic candidate running against our evil lady commissioner was actually commissioner himself awhile back.  He accused his opponent, then the Director of the Camano Center, of an agenda that would close down the Whidbey Navy Base, thinking, I guess, that Island County Commissioners have unlimited jurisdiction, probably suspicious too that she might confiscate the land and give it back to the tribes we took it from in the first place.  Back then he couldn’t pronounce the name of our island and had to be corrected at the town hall meeting.  Tomato, tomahto, Camano, Camahno,you might think he’d come a bit more prepared….

Politics is a tough racket even in the pre-Trump days.  Talk to some of these candidates nowadays and you hear stories of nasty encounters when they go doorbelling, guns brought out, curses yelled, full blown paranoid rage, welcome to the neighborhood.  Sic the hounds of hate on em!  It may be these times demand a tougher skin, a steely determination, a don’t-turn-the-other-cheek attitude, a knee-to-the-groin response.  You want a man for commissioner, Mr. Misogyny, better get yerself a metal codpiece, Skeeter and the Amazons are coming for you!

At least til the editor of the Gazette asks nicely for a cease and desist.  Again.