Maybe trapping alligators isn’t that bad after all

in Tajikistan could impact the race for Georgia’s insurance commissioner. (Sorry, I can’t give you a hint, for it is a very complex subject that I want to get exactly right so you can wow them in the checkout line or at the garage sale.)

She wondered if I kept a file of my previous columns. Of course, I scoffed. I am making history and it is incumbent I have documentation available for future generations seeking to mine the political wisdom of times past. “Could you find the column you wrote in February 2001?” she asked. Piece of cake, I said.

It was a column about the upcoming governor’s race. “Would you please read aloud the first sentence in the fifth paragraph?” she requested. Sure. “Gov. Roy Barnes has his hand firmly on the throttle.” Next sentence, please: “He is helped immeasurably by a Republican leadership in the Legislature that can’t find their backside with both hands.” “Now,” she said, “the next sentence.” Uh-oh, I wasn’t liking where this was going. “Roy Barnes will easily win a second term.”

“Did he?” she asked. I told her I didn’t remember. That was a long time ago. “Let me refresh your memory,” she said. “A Republican state senator from Bonaire, George E. Perdue, won and became the first Republican governor in Georgia since Reconstruction and only the second in our state’s history.” She had to have read that somewhere.

“I have an idea,” she said. I hoped it was a better one than having me read that column aloud. “Over the years, I have gotten to know a number of your editors well. I thought I might share this column with them,” she chirped, “and remind them of just what a highly respected political pundit you are.”

Please don’t do that, I whined. “Then do you think you could find something else to write about instead of politics?” she asked. I told her there was a good possibility of that if she would destroy that column.

So, it is with much regret that I must inform you that due to circumstances beyond my control, I am unable to explain how the monetary fluctuations in Tajikistan could impact the Georgia insurance commissioner’s race. Maybe it’s time I thought about trapping alligators for a living.

You can reach Dick Yarbrough at dick@ dickyarbrough. com; at P.O. Box 725373, Atlanta, Georgia 31139 or on Facebook at www. facebook.com/dickyarb