14 – Annabella’s Leadership Style Persists

RUBBERY SHRUBBERY Post 14

This is the award-winning Rubbery Shrubbery (RS) blog. It describes the adventures of the Oregon village of Yachats (YAH-hots) and its inhabitants—called Yachatians (yah-HAY-shuns) or Yahotties (yah-HOT-tees)—as they work to obtain a Major League Baseball team named the Yachats Smelt. Each episode tells more about this era in the town’s history. To learn about Yachats, please go to this page or go to GoYachats.

For this post, Ms. Isabel Stackhollow again will bless us with her hard-hitting journalistic skills. She continues telling about the crucial Yachats Smelt Board of Directors meeting held at the Yachats Baseball Field.

Annabella’s Leadership Style Persists
by Isabel Stackhollow

When last we saw the Smelt Board of Directors they were standing in center field of the Yachats Baseball Field under the scrutiny of their self-appointed leader, Annabella Kowalski. They were standing because Annabella was sure that would keep the meeting short.

In a shower of glorious sunshine, Annabella started the meeting by announcing the first item on the agenda was to determine where the Smelt would play their games. “First, let me see the hands of all those who have seen a real major league game in person.”

Only one hand shot up. Well, it started to shoot up…then, as it became apparent it was going to be alone up there, its owner pretended it wasn’t a true component of his personal self, and the hand changed its mind. But, too late! Annabella had already spotted it.

The hand in this case was the right one belonging to Ashwagandha C. Mugwump. (His middle name is a sore spot with Mr. Mugwump. Other children teased him about it when he was a child. You know how cruel kids can be about a name like Charles or any other name in the middle.) We all call him “Wumpy.”

Wumpy is a man brimming with self-contradiction, confusion, and coffee—a typical semi-retired economist. “So, Wumpy, you’ve seen an actual major league baseball game?” Annabella asked rhetorically. “Please come up front and tell us about it.”

“Well, it was only the Mariners playing the Royals,” Wumpy hesitated. “That probably doesn’t even count, huh?”

“Oh, of course it does,” Annabella encouraged. “It will be good to hear how baseball is played in the UK.”

Whereupon, Wumpy was prompted and prodded by board members until he was standing alongside Annabella, dry-mouthed and wobbly. He gave Annabella a look full of questions.

“Why don’t you tell us about the place where they played the game?” urged Annabella.

With that Wumpy’s face lighted up, which was certainly something to see. He enthused. “They had a stadium with a roof that opened and closed.”

“Both?” Annabella prompted.

“You bet,” Wumpy replied, using a favorite expression of economists. “As I was sitting there staring up, I was thinking in italics how cool would it be to have this roof in Yachats—you know, where we could open it up for sunshine during the summer and close it up to keep out the rain in the winter. That roof was huge; I mean it would cover all of Yachats. Think what a boon it would be to our winter tourist business!” Wumpy becomes very vocal when he’s enthused. (Figure 1 shows the roof that Wumpy was enthused about.)

Figure 1. Seattle's Safeco Field in the foreground with Yachats's roof perched atop it.

“Murmur murmur murmur!” the directors responded. Obviously, they had all figured out the area of a roof that would cover Yachats, and they were calculating the storm runoff rate of such a roof, although a few were stumbling dealing with differential equations without an afternoon nap.

“What a splendid idea!” Annabella reciprocated, gushing for them all. “Why, we would rival the Riviera and Waikiki for luring super-rich tourists, and that’s the only kind these days. The structure would pay for itself in no time.”

“Exactly what I thought. Mind you, I haven’t actually done the numbers, but it just makes sense, doesn’t it?”

But does it make sense? What if Seattle doesn’t want to sell their roof? What if Fairbanks and Murmansk decide they want roofs, too—would they then become winter tourist Meccas and drain frosty tourist dollars away from Yachats? And there are all those homeless people to consider—are they still classified as homeless if they have a roof over their heads? As you see, there’s no situation so simple that it can’t be made confusing with just a little thought.

Next time: The Smelt Board of Directors concentrates on solving the Seattle Mariners roof migration problem, as well as all the other Smelt problems. Does the roof come with the rest of the stadium as a set? And if push comes to shove and we can’t get Seattle’s roof, can a roof be built from scratch without expending a lot of the village’s resources?

NOTE: Please go to “Leave a Reply” at the bottom of this page to offer valuable comments and suggestions regarding the Seattle roof situation (and please don’t suggest we swipe the roof some moonless night). We probably won’t publish any of your advice, but we bet we’ll get a lot of laughs.

NOTE AGAIN: Eric Sallee and Dave Baldwin are giddy with excitement at seeing their names appear in print at the end of each post of the Rubbery Shrubbery blog. Enough is enough, however. The RS blog is now actively seeking famous celebrities to make guest appearances as writers of this epic chronicle. Candidates must have a good sense of humor and an impressive knowledge of baseball or vice versa. If any of you happen to know the phone number of Susan Sarandon and/or Billy Crystal, please contact us immediately.