RUBBERY SHRUBBERY Post 16
This is the Rubbery Shrubbery (RS) blog, one of the leading blogs west of the Willamette River. Here you will learn how Yachats (YAH-hots), Oregon, and its 690 inhabitants—called Yachatians (yah-HAY-shuns) or Yahotties (yah-HOT-tees)—go about getting a Major League Baseball team (to be known as the Yachats Smelt). To learn about Yachats, please go to this page or go to GoYachats.
In today’s post, Mr. Ashwagandha C. Mugwump (known locally as “Wumpy”) describes for us the beehive-like activity of the Roof Committee. Wumpy is captain of this committee.
Not That We’re a Bunch of Squall Babies
by Ashwagandha C. Mugwump
The Pacific Northwest is noted for being moist, especially Yachats. In fact, Yachats is rainier than any other city hosting a major league baseball team. (Average annual rainfall for Yachats is 69.2 inches, Miami’s average is about 58 in., and Atlanta’s is about 55 in.)
Despite these drenchings Yachatians aren’t a bunch of squall babies, running for cover at the first sign of deluge. Far from it. Yachatians are a robust breed, laughing in the face of horizontal rain and hail.
Although Yachatians don’t mind watching a ballgame in a two-hour downpour, they are sensitive to the preferences of non-Yachatians. Smelt players, for example, will be coming from far corners of the globe, where they always played in ideal conditions. Also, visitors to Yachats watching a Smelt game will wish to stay dry throughout.
With this in mind the Smelt went looking for ways to keep the weather away and figured to save money by hiring one of the Sasquatch sorcerers. They’re adept at magical incantations to shoo storm clouds. In fact, they originated the now famous and widely-used spell “Rain, rain, go away / Come again another day,” which prevents cumulonimbus activity over Sasquatch picnics, but with an added safeguard against bringing on a drought (i.e., it keeps the rain away only for a while).
We talked to Roderick P. Roderick, President of the Sasquatch Order of Sorcerers (SOS), about the possibility of signing one of its members to a long term contract. I wasn’t daunted a bit in meeting his huge, hairy personage. He sat with his enormous feet propped up on his desk, smoking a cigar.
Wumpy: Understand, Mr. Roderick, the Smelt would need clear skies only in the baseball season, April through September, and then only when the Smelt are playing home games. Can we arrange to hire a sorcerer seasonal and part-time?
Mr. Roderick (chuckling): Hah! Part-time? You’ve got to be kidding! None of our experienced sorcerers work under those conditions. They’ll sign only multi-year, seven figure contracts. If you aren’t willing to make a serious commitment to dryness, you need to look elsewhere.
Wumpy (choking): Seven figures?
Mr. Roderick (smugly): Hey, our services are top of the line. You could pay less but you’d have to settle for just a witch or wizard, and second rate at that. You get the hocus pocus you pay for.
So we decided to look elsewhere. We considered the new proton-smashing-and-mirrors technology that’s been developed at Cannibal Laboratories up on Cannibal Mountain, but we would have to use a beta version and then there’s that safety issue.
That leaves us with the stadium dome idea (which I had suggested early on, you’ll remember). This has been tried and proven effective in almost all cases (well…there were Minneapolis and Vancouver, BC, but those were unfortunate outliers).
In fact, people have been kicking around the domed stadium concept for many millennia. At least one professional expert believes that the Roman Coliseum was domed originally (a rare photo of the Coliseum with its dome is shown in Fig. 1). An ancient architectural blueprint has been found that indicates a bright, flashing sign reading, “Luigi Polo’s Primo Pizza Coliseum” was planned for the façade of the building, but despite many attempts, the Romans were unable to discover neon.
Figure 1. Rare photo of the Roman Coliseum wearing its dome.
Apparently, during one of their many sackings of Rome, the Visigoths or Vandals or both lifted the dome and took it home, wherever that might be. Later, the quadruple-decked chariot parking structure that was adjacent to the Coliseum was completely destroyed by the Vikings and again the very next day by the Kickapoos, so that nothing of it is left.
But other domed stadiums have had happier days—they’ve flourished in towns such as Fargo, Pocatello, Eagar, and Gelsenkirchen. Even the ill-fated Metrodome, an inflatable and suddenly deflatable plastic structure, has had a joyous outcome, being turned into many thousands of lunch baggies.
That said, we have our eye on one domed stadium in particular. We’ll tell you our cunning plan next time.
Next time: Cunning plans don’t come along every day, so you’ll want to read about this one.
NOTE: Ron Howard, Patrick F. McManus, and Christopher Moore are just three of the many real celebrities who have not yet offered to contribute to this blog. If you are one of these, please let us know at the bottom of this page. Or if you are an exceptional writer, crazy about baseball or Yachats, and have some time on your hands, please let us know that, too. We are actively seeking REAL TALENT who would like to pitch in on the writing of this blog. It could change your life.
NOTE AGAIN: Eric Sallee and Dave Baldwin want to point out that this blog is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual boojums or snarks, living or dead, is purely coincidental.