Scraping the bottom of the cracker barrel, yours truly was selected as this year’s Island County Fair grand marshal. It’s a history- making decision in several ways. First, no newspaper editor has ever been grand marshal; second I’ll be the first to have to wear a catcher’s mask to ward off the rotten fruit thrown in my honor; and third, I might be walking because I don’t have a horse, a convertible or a tractor.
However, should I survive the ordeal down First Street and Camano Avenue to the fairgrounds, I have already received my coveted fair bracelet that allows free admittance for the day. Should someone with a grudge against my work (several are due to be released any day now) fling a hatchet my way, then delighted parade-goers will descend on my body fighting over the coveted plastic bracelet.
My best hope is that few parade-goers will recognize me. It’s been nine years since I acceded to popular demand and quit as editor of the South Whidbey Record and was given a party by roughly 22 of the biggest kooks on the South End. There wasn’t a school board or city council member is sight, and the mayor had something more important to do, specifically watch the clouds float by from his lawnchair. But I was happy to see Whidbey Island’s oddest successful politician, U.S. Congressman Jack Metcalf, show up to say farewell. Weird as his positions could be, I always treated them seriously, like the time he urged his supporters to turn in their paper money at Whidbey Island Bank for coins, which he considered real money. Unfortunately, by that time gold and silver coins were fake and consisted of the cheapest of base metals, but Jack was making a point. The years have proven him right because I still don’t have any real money except for a commemorative John F. Kennedy silver half dollar left to me by a relative.
Only occasionally do I see a South Whidbey resident who was in the news when I was editor down there. I’m always shocked by their appearance, as if some virus had swept the entire South End. Their hair is gray, their faces are wrinkled and they walk with a hitch in their getalong. But at least they’re alive. I continually see people across the street or down the aisle in the grocery store, consider offering me regards, and then realize they’ve been dead for a number of years.
I’m actually hoping the many dead people I used to know will line the parade route on Saturday as I slowly make my way down the street. Some of my favorite islanders have passed on, and it’d be great to see them at one last fair parade, even if they’re tossing ghostly, rotten fruit my way.
