15 – The Board Goes to Pieces

RUBBERY SHRUBBERY Post 15

You’ve come upon the Rubbery Shrubbery (RS) blog, one of the world’s more popular on-line publications. It will tell you how the Oregon village of Yachats (YAH-hots) and its citizens—called Yachatians (yah-HAY-shuns)—go about turning the Yachats Smelt into a Major League Baseball team. Each episode moves us down the road toward the big leagues. To learn about Yachats, “Home of the World’s Largest Ocean,” please go to this page or go to GoYachats.

For this post, Ms. Isabel Stackhollow continues telling about the second Yachats Smelt Board of Directors meeting held on the Yachats Baseball Field.

The Board Goes to Pieces
by Isabel Stackhollow

Under Annabella Kowalski’s direction, the Board of Directors meeting was humming along in the outfield (see Figure 1). She had ferreted out Ashwagandha C. “Wumpy” Mugwump who once attended a major league baseball game in Seattle. Wumpy reported the stadium there had a roof—one that both opens and closes—and suggested this would be a good addition to Yachats, covering the whole village, shutting out annoying winter rains. Visions of dry tourists danced through directors’ heads as they imagined having one of their very own!

Figure 1. Deep in center field at the Yachats Baseball Field.

Then Annabella turned to the large whiteboard standing behind her. Markers of red and blue and ochre were lying in the tray. As fast as her hand could write, she partitioned the Board of Directors into a brilliant mosaic of red, blue, and ochre committees. Committees for stadium and roof and playing field. For uniforms and cheerleaders.

Someone shouted, “We’ll need players,” and Annabella scribbled “Player Committee.” Another shouted, “We’ll need scouts to find those players.” Then, “How about a farm system?” “And a spring training site.” “And an enormous, quantum-powered, nerve-shattering, electro whocarnio flooks scoreboard with spectacular five-dimensional fireworks.”

As each committee was named, Annabella assigned a captain to it. Soon the whiteboard was filled. Then the captains used the traditional hand-over-hand-up-the-bat-to-the-knob method to choose up sides. (After several tries failed, Annabella had to disqualify Big Bruno Truncheon.) Before you could say Ashwagandha C. Mugwump all committee assignments had been made.

With that, the meeting adjourned and not a moment too soon—fifteen minutes is a long time to go without electronic devices or restrooms. Besides, the mocking twitters of the crows were beginning to get on everyone’s nerves.

“And what happened to Wumpy?” you might ask. Named Captain of the Roof Committee, that’s what. After the meeting ended, after other directors headed home, he stood there in center field, imagining the roof above him, sheltering the field, the swamp, the whole village and more.

He imagined the magnificent roof wide open to allow brilliant sunlight to pour down on the La-De-Da Parade (July 4th). He imagined the great roof closed tightly in December, rain pitter-pattering upon it and strings of bright holiday lights draped and dangling from the rafters. Then he imagined a gigantic marble statue (see Figure 2) of Ashwagandha C. Mugwump standing out on the headlands of the state park, with a brass plaque reading “Wumpy the Great, Hero of the Yachatian Roof.” Wumpy’s spirits soared.

Then Wumpy fell into the swamp in center field.

Figure 2. Statue of Wumpy the Great, as envisioned by Wumpy.

Next time: Will the Yachatian Roof come to pass?

NOTE: If you happen to know a red hot celebrity who likes to write…say, Carol Burnett or X.J. Kennedy or Ivan Doig, please let us know at the bottom of this page. Or if you happen to be any kind of celebrity at all, hot or otherwise, please let us know that, too. We are seeking BIG NAMES or medium-sized names who want to pitch in on writing this blog.

NOTE AGAIN: Dave Baldwin and Eric Sallee want you to know that Drs. Burnett, Kennedy, and Doig have not contributed to this blog. At least, not yet.

NOTE ONE MORE TIME: The Rubbery Shrubbery blog will be published once a week (each Monday) beginning this week. Please tell your friends.