By Scott Sullivan
Editor
Rigged
Summer and living’s uneasy. In Baldwin an alligator was rescued by police June 11 after a high-speed car chase.
An Oak Park man, 40, fled Lake County deputies till his car got stuck between trees on a rails-to-trails path. Karen the alligator tried to flee but was caught after a short scuffle.
The passenger now is not facing charges. “We believe she was an unwilling participant,” police said. Not so her consort, who faces charges for the chase and has several outstanding warrants. Why have mediocre warrants?
Who have we become when we can’t take a gate’ for a spin, run out of gas or get stuck between trees near a late-night wooded area?
“Karen, I need to park my oak,” you’d say “Nice tail and jaws. We can scale this somehow.”
Sirens.
“Run for the swamp! It’s police!” you’d cry.
Guys ride Gators on trails, manicuring golf courses, on construction sites … Deere are popular but some jobs take a Bobcat.
“Thousands meet to vote on abuse, new president,” read a nearby headline. There’s a difference? Southern Baptists facing a probe into past sex abuse will vote on a new head to handle it.
“Bronx Zoo elephant Happy isn’t person, court rules” topped another story. I’d be Happy not to be one either.
I learn way too much reading news. Elsewhere, Little Caesars has out-pizzaed the Hut to become the NFL’s new Official Pizza. Not that I have the budget or ego, but NFL should pay our paper to be its Official Football League.
With this kind of head for business, why not waste the nothing I’ll earn squatting in Alaska to run in the Last Frontier’s first contested House race in 50 years?
Don Young was first elected to the state’s only U.S. House seat in 1973 and left only after dying. Remember Alaska’s “Bridge to Nowhere”? Given Young’s seniority he swung above the state’s popular vote clout to win a $398-million House grant to build a remote bridge longer than San Francisco’s Golden Gate near Ketchikan.
Young lost in ‘72 to Nick Begich I, whose body was never recovered after a plane crash days before the election. After Begich was declared dead officially, Young succeeded him till carted off in a Hearse with snow tires, assuming Washington’s cherry blossoms and PAC money blooming hadn’t inspired part-time relocation.
Now he’s kaput, failed U.S. vice presidential candidate and less than one-term former Gov. Sarah Palin (19 percent) led 47 other candidates per a May Poll in the upcoming write-in primary.
Next (16 percent) was Nick Begich III. Third was Al Gross, who last changed parties to Democrat after the U.S. Supreme Court’s Roe vs. Wade decision was leaked. “I will never be beholden to partisan politics,” Gross said then.
My favorites for November’s Final Four top primary vote-getters is Santa Claus (his real name) from North Pole (real Alaska city), a merry-looking democratic socialist with a white beard who favors giving supporters all they want for no money, thank you taxpayers elves.
Alaska’ political establishment mired in the Anchorage swamp doesn’t view Claus as a serious candidate but what’s serious about elections? The state’s handful of Democrats nonetheless fear name recognition might land him among the Final Four squeezing out other Red State tokens.
Should I rage all elections are rigged or — better insight than incite — give in to history? To “rig” is misunderstood. That’s what makes sailboats catch wind, rigs behind truck cabs are where the goods lie. Rigs are tools to help people achieve things. It is not the rig’s fault what people achieve in your mind is wrong.
Love and energy drive all although hate drives too. A recent local government meeting reminded me why, like my wife, I like nonhumans sometimes better. Dogs, cats, bunnies, birds … I got her a fish tank when we were courting but mollies and guppies cane up floating a few years later. I’d been negligent expecting her to do all the needed maintenance.
Having learned after 28 years, I do pitch in now and then on the dogs, cats and Angel, our white dove. We sing to each and at least her coos are ethereal. Our daughter likes that I interact with Angel enough to decline comment my timbre, tone and so on.
Yesterday drives tomorrow too fast for now’s vision to keep up with. She didn’t ask what I’d like for Father’s Day knowing I needed nothing. She’s already given me everything.
Wink, our black kitten, gets jealous outside Angel’s cage bars and rrrs at me compared to meows when hungry. “How hungry are you?” I’d ask but he’s not Johnny Carson nor wolfing down — that’s what dogs do — Iams. Cats have more finesse.
If I left the news business who’d be happier? With camera I would follow my eye because visions of love transform everything.
