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PMFL week whatever: The Road Rage All Over edition
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Welcome to week whatever it is of the Pembroke Mafia Football League, the only Mafia Football League in Pembroke where members have hats to cover their pointy heads. Well, most of us do.

Some of us haven’t come by to get them yet, and some loser with the initials J.W. keeps forgetting to mail a hat out to someone with the initials T.O., but the rest of us have got hats. Spiffy form fitting hats to keep the sun from frying our pates.

I have a few extras for sale, by the way, for $50 a pop. The money will go to my favorite charity – me.

That said, it’s odd sometimes what goes traipsing through one’s mind. One minute I’m cheering on the Braves, the next I’m wondering why my belly button looks a lot like me. Does that happen as you get older?

Anyone, before we get around to the actual picks the focus is on screwed up traffic, which is making life in the Coastal Empire weirder and weirder and weirder. It’s also a reminder should you need one that everything hangs by a thread, as well as proof nothing made by Clemson graduates is anywhere close to permanent, and obstacles and roadblocks and detours are apt to pop up at the most inopportune times whilst you are trying to get from Point A to Point B, or back. These days you just about can’t. Or at least you can’t without it taking an extra half hour or longer to account for all the new stuff out there. Anyhow, I was headed down to take my mother lunch the other day when some poor fellow ran his tractor trailer into a bridge down in Liberty County. It shut down traffic all over creation.

An hour and some 200 yards after I initially came to a halt I was directed off 95 in Midway, already somewhat alarmed at the number of people who’d decided they shouldn’t have to wait like the rest of and therefore kept switching lanes and driving in the breakdown lane and then having to get back onto the road which meant getting back in front of us.

Included in this number were a raft of hippy-looking people in a station wagon with a “Coexist” sticker on the back window and a Florida tag. They gave me a smile and wave and then cut in front of me.

Not for the first time, I asked myself why it is people who want you to get along with them want you to do it on their terms, not yours.

Like most of us, I am perfectly happy to coexist with anyone and everyone, but I have a hard time doing so with what seems to be an ever-increasing number of people who want me to coexist with them while they could obviously care less about coexisting with me.

Anyway, not long after that, there was some traffic lunacy in Midway, as drivers who’d been shunted off 95 south tried to take lefts onto 17 south even though they were in the right hand lane, and civil society and law and order and the rules of the road and all that stuff you needed to know and learned in kindergarten all just sort of went out the window.

It was like Escape from New York, given the number of tags from the Empire State I couldn’t help but notice since they had those orange and black tags that remind me of Halloween.

They were everywhere, and even outnumbered Ohio license plates for a change.

Anyway, some 2-1/2 hours later and I was motoring my way to a farewell event in Hinesville. I drove north up Highway 17, which was backed up from the Riceboro exit on 95 all the way into Midway and beyond, and into Richmond Hill, though I wasn’t going that way.

Instead, I heard from a coworker with Facebook that traffic in the area was still screwed up, and I suspect local TV stations breathlessly reported on the situation, because that’s what local TV stations do when they’re not busy quacking like well-dressed ducks whenever it rains hard.

It was about then I remembered some bits of stoic philosophy and the old memento mori notion that we all, me included, will kick the bucket at some point no matter, so in my case that means I might as well calm down and quit making myself look even dumber than I am.

“Memento Mori,” I said aloud, four or five times, and actually felt better.

And still all the way until Tuesday, though I had to remind myself “memento mori” a bunch of times because, well, driving hereabouts has lost its collective mind. At one point, right there at Highway 204 and Old River Road I was pulling out when two SUVs got into it, with horns blaring and brakes slamming and some tailgating and whatnot before they took off over the Ogeechee River and for all I know ran each other off the road somewhere in the middle of Ellabell and pulled out switchblades to settle the matter.

Yep, memento mori.

I just hope the end doesn’t come for me while I’m stuck in transfer truck traffic on Highway 80 in Blitchton, or waiting at the 144 and 17 traffic light behind some yuppie in a Land Rover with an Ohio State Buckeyes license plate frame.

This week’s standings come directly from PMFL CEO B.J. Clark, our beloved leader. I’ve copied and pasted them below so you can have fun deciphering them, like I do.

No doubt about who the number ONE team is, Congratulations to UGA and can we (AU fans) send Bobo back to Y’all (Gamecocks)? An exciting week of great games, results below.

Rev Lawrence with 4 misses and Mike C. with 5 misses are tied for first place again.

(YTD of 20) Ted with 3 misses and a YTD of 21 is in second place.

Dawnne with 4 misses, Ben with two misses (best weekly) and Jeff with 4 misses are tied up for third place with YTD of 23.

Bob with 4 misses, BJ with 4 misses (picked Texas A and M, finally got one right against Bama), are tied for 4th place with 25 YTD.

King Noah with a 5 miss week and a YTD of 26 is in 5th place.

Carter with 5 misses, Alex with 3 misses and Mike Brown with 4 misses are tied for 6th place with a YTD of 29.

Freddy with a 3 miss week and Dr. Gene with 6 misses and a YTD of 30 claim the cellar this week.

The North has a slim 5 game lead over the south, 174 to 179 misses. Please advise as to any errors, omissions or suggestions.

Thanks B.J. I’ll take it from here. This week’s picks.

Navy vs. Memphis: Mike B., Noah, Alex and Gene take Navy. Appy vs. Louisiana: Alex, Ted and yours truly take the Cajuns. Georgia Southern vs. South Alabama; Alex, Lawrence and Dawnne take the Jaguars. Rest of us pick the Iggles, who almost pulled one out against Troy last week.

BYU vs. Baylor: B.J., Noah, Dawnne, Mike B., Alex, Ben, Carter, Ted, Freddy and Gene take Baylor. Whoever’s left took the Cougars, bless our hearts. Air Force vs. Boise: Bob, Lawrence and Carter go with the Airmen, ret of us take the blue field Broncos. Marshall vs. North Texas: Alex, Bob, Noah and your’s truly take the Mean Green. Don’t know about anybody else, but I took them because A): I like that name and B): Marshall is not a real school. Auburn vs. Arkansas: B.J., Bob, Carter, Dwanne and me take the War Beagles, rest take those obnoxious Ozarkians.

Slippery Rock vs. Indiana (Penn.): Freddy takes Indiana, rest of us take Slippery Rock, and how could we not?

Kentucky vs. UGA: Nobody takes Kentucky. I’m beginning to think nobody will ever beat UGA again, and I hope that I’m wrong. This week.

Either way, memento mori. Or, to put it another way, no matter how long you live you’re still going to be dead the same amount of time (as someone wiser than me put it).

Go Gamecocks and remember to be nice to pets and dogs and people who don’t know any better because, as my mother likes to say, “they’re probably yankees.” Except, of course, in my case. I really do know better, I just don’t know how.


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