Jeff Whitten, Local Columnist

Welcome to another installment of the Pembroke Mafia Football League, and man does time fly these days. It’s December already -- next thing you know, it’ll be 2038.

Scientifically speaking, I blame developers and their enablers in various governments. Before they took over and started moving dirt hither and yon thereby rearranging the natural order of things, life here moved at a far more reasonable pace.

Indeed, all of life was more leisurely and therefore good. We were fun to be around. That might be what doomed us.

That’s because back in the 1990s the powers that were and still are willfully set about turning what was once a bucolic slice of heaven with a drawl into a cross between Atlanta, Pittsburgh and Detroit, with a sizable part of Ohio and New Jersey thrown in. The population and aggravation and taxes went up accordingly, and days started flapping by like buzzards on speed.

The science will back me up. E=mc2 says more people per square mile means more weight, which means the counterbalancing force is lesser, which means messing with the earth’s torque, which impacts its gyration. It’s simple.

So, while it may have initially taken more energy to keep the planet spinning and it slowed down for a second before getting a second wind – that could explain why a certain Monday in 1998 seemed to last about six weeks -- the ever increasing amounts of weight along the Georgia coast are now making the world turn faster and screwing up the calendar.

Some history for those who just got to this part of the world. Once upon a time you could go from, say, here where I am to over there where I am not, and do it without the veins sticking out in your forehead because 50,000 people were trying to run you over to get there first.

Now try to get anywhere and you get stuck in traffic or, more likely, run into by someone without insurance as soon as you leave your driveway.

That’s why there are so many injury lawyers on local TV these days. You will very probably have to sue somebody very soon.

But all is not lost, maybe.

There are schools of very smart thought which say a certain massive auto manufacturing concern with enormous factories sprinkled around the Coastal Empire will eventually suck up so much water it will counteract the weight gain from construction on the earth’s surface to the point equilibrium with the rest of the planet will be restored and the earth’s rotation will again slow down.

Yet there’s also the possibility – perhaps the probability, given the pace of residential building hereabouts – the expected addition of another two or three million toilets, showers and sprinkler systems will return so much water back underground (it’ll put water from the Savannah River into places it was never meant to go) will cause the planet to go further out of whack.

Even worse, there’s the theory that this part of Georgia will become a giant sinkhole once all the groundwater and rivers are slurped up, and we’ll all turn into mole people and cook our meals by tire fire.

That also could lead to the earth wobbling off its axis – think a tire out of balance -- and juddering away into a portion of space where there are no HOAs or Big 10-themed bars, or the sort of people who think those are good things. A silver lining in every cloud, eh?

Now, on to more important stuff.

Mike Brown, the world’s oldest sportswriter, and Mike Clark, the only member of the PMFL with groupies – even if they do need tweezers – are co-champions of the first half of the 2025 PMFL football season. They had 29 misses each.

That’s quite an accomplishment and they are to be congratulated. I have trophies on the backorder from TEMU.

Retired Chief Petty Admiral B.J. Clark, our founder and conscience, finished second with 33 misses.

County Administrator Ben Taylor finished third with 34 misses. The Rev. Lawrence Butler took fourth with 35 misses, I placed fifth with 36 misses and Ted O’Neil is sixth with 43 misses.

District 5 Commissioner Dr. Gene “The Dentist” Wallace finished seventh with 44 misses.

Retired County Fire Chief Freddy Howell, he of the cavernous nostrils with enough brush up there to start a fire if he needed one, was eighth with 46 misses.

County Commission Chairman Carter Infinger XIV placed ninth with 49 misses and District 1 Commissioner Alex Floyd was 10th with 55 misses. Finishing last with 57 misses is former District 1 Commissioner Noah Covington, who starred in Grease in 1980-something as a senior at Bryan County High School and is thus forever known as the King of North Bryan.

Here’s hoping you have a great week. Be kind to us old people, and kids, and animals, and remember, what goes around comes around and no matter where you go, there you are.