Editor’s note; This will be the fastest written Pembroke Mafia Football League in the history of the PMFL. As proof, it is 4:26 p.m. EST on Wednesday, Nov. 10, 2021, and here we go.
Welcome to a special Veterans Day edition of the Pembroke Mafia Football League and let’s give a shout out to the PMFL’s hippest veteran, B.J. Clark.
B.J. is retired Navy and served in Vietnam. He’s also a big cheese with Pembroke American Legion 164 and acts as vice royal Republican commander of the North Bryan Navy, which last time I checked consisted of a couple of floats and one of those plastic pink paddle boats B.J. had moored at the Floyd’s Pond House.
It was armed with a potato gun and some cans of heavy duty insect repellent, just in case the gnats got too bad.
B.J. don’t truck with gnats, not even at Georgia Southern games. He once set half the Paulson Stadium parking lot of fire trying out his homemade flamethrower, which just happened to be a can of WD 40, a Bic lighter and a six pack of Busch Light.
He learned that trick in Nam while he was busy sailing around Vietnamese territorial waters, listening to Three Dog Night and Porter Wagner in his skivvies.
My sister Kay had a friend up in Columbia, S.C., who was a dead ringer for Porter. My sister and her friend were both in high school at the time.
It is now 4:30 p.m. EST: Has anyone here ever tried to eat a gopher? One of my college roommates 100 years ago used to eat moles and toads, kind of like Cousin Eddie from Vacation.
This week’s standings: Former Bryan County News Assistant Editor Ted O’Neil leads the pack with 34 misses and actually got the special bonus question of who would be the next Georgia Southern football coach right by naming Clay Helton.
Editor’s note No. 2: I think I picked Ed Orgeron because I like to hear him talk.
In second because he didn’t get the next coach right is the Rev. Lawrence Butler, who keeps us on the straight and narrow. The Rev. has 34 misses.
Richmond Hill City Clerk Dawnne Greene and Mike Clark are tied for third with 37 misses each. Mike is our ambassador to Pooler, because Pooler has gotten so full of yankees it’s like somewhere out of Montauk, or Zanesville, or Hoboken. Plus, Mike has groupies. They dig his eyebrow.
Dawnne, meanwhile, knows more about football than the rest of us put together and she’s married to a fire chief to boot. You can’t make this stuff up folks. A real fire chief.
In fourth is me, your’s truly, and it’s a wonder I wasn’t run over while writing this. People are nuts out there. Oh, and if you haven’t stopped for gas at the Highway 204 exit after 10 p.m., don’t. And if you do, carry a cross and one of of B.J.’s gnat-killing flamethrowers. It’s an odd place.
It is 4:41 p.m. I attribute the slowdown to typing words I didn’t recognize, like Hoboken.
In fifth is B.J. Clark. He’s right where he wants us.
In sixth is Bryan County Administrator Ben Taylor. I’ve waxed eloquent about Ben’s socks, his lack of height and his pin-striped ventroloquist (can’t spell it and ain’t about to look it up) dummy suits for years. But the truth is Ben is an astute and capable bureaucrat. And the world needs bureaucrats just like it needs developers and lawyers and realtors and the rest of the great big dog and pony show.
Besides, Ben is from the Fire Ant Capital of the World and the original Keith-A-Cue barbecue.
Up next in the standings are Bryan County Fire and Emergency Services Chief Freddy Howell -- whose agency seems to change it’s name about every other week -- and Bob Floyd, the pine tree baron of Highway 67 and a close personal friend, I think. I’d hate to get on the wrong side of old Bob. Not only does he own half the world, but in warm weather he doesn’t wear sleeves.
It’s his own personal gnat defense system, I hear. He just flaps his arms a few time and it sets up a 25-yard-defensive barrier, sort of like one of those propane mosquito fogger things.
Then there’s Richmond Hill Special Projects Manager Alex Floyd, who is in charge of managing special projects. Alex turned 28 or something last week and only missed one pick along the way, so he’s feeling pretty good about life.
Alex is tied for eighth with District 1 County Commissioner Noah Covington, who I hear is considering joining up a sort of Laurel and Hardy ticket with County Commission Chairman Carter Infinger to explore whether they should A) run for president and vice president in the next presidential election, or B) form a tag team and compete in the WWE.
I hear they’re leaning toward B on the grounds they don’t want to stoop to the level of discourse currently going on amongst national political leaders -- which mostly seems to amount to “you #()(#,” which gets the response “well you #()#()# worse.”
Better to follow the lead of the great Dusty Rhodes, the “cold blooded sausage maker” himself -- my hero the American Dream, the guy who said “I have dined with kings and queens, I have slept in alleys and dined on pork and beans.”
In ninth place are Dr. Gene Wallace, DMD and sportswriter emeritus Mike Brown. That’s the cellar. Both got great stories about things like teeth and the importance of a good BM.
North Bryan leads South Bryan 287-292.
5 p.m. straight up. This week’s games, in a nutshell.
Boston College vs. Georgia Tech; Michigan vs. Penn State; Valdosta vs. West Florida; Texas A& M vs. Ole Miss; GSU vs. Texas State; Oklahoma vs. Baylor; UGA vs. Tennessee; Chattanooga vs. Mercer; North Carolina State vs. Wake Forest; and Georgia States vs. Coastal Carolina. Worth noting is only Ted and I picked Tennessee. I don’t like those creamsicle orange moonshine smoking hillbillies anymore than the next ordinary human with an IQ higher than 6, but UGA has to go down.
And with that, it’s 5:05 p.m. Happy Veterans Day. I’m going to celebrate by burning some cheap furniture and cooking a bratwurst.
Whitten is editor of the BCN.