I had every intention of personally going to the City Council meeting, but a bad case of the heebie-jeebies kept me home, cowering low, sunk back in a recliner watching it on television. I have it on good authority the city fathers frown on a certain reporter guzzling Wild Turkey and laughing insanely at their antics, so it was wiser to opt for the easy chair.

Luckily, the cable wasn't out and I was able to tune in just about the time the articulate debate between Mayor Jewell and Councilman Keith began. Parliamentary procedure played a big part in the evening's entertainment; however, no one on the council was sure exactly what parliamentary procedure meant except when invoking it to try to silence someone else.

Parliamentary procedure is a rather strange and complicated set of rules under which deliberative bodies conduct their proceedings. The procedure is based on the practice of the English Parliament and United States congress; however, presiding officers of a legislative body are the respective interpreters of parliamentary law.

In a nutshell, this means the Mayor can do as he damn well pleases. Which is a good thing, because he does. Parliamentary procedure is on its last leg in Lebanon.

While it is true that Mr. Keith does intend to run for the office of mayor come next election, he appeared to be campaigning a bit early. Mr. Keith's comments to Mayor Jewell were offensive, disrespectful, and refreshingly accurate, but if he wanted to bring up the fact that Mayor Jewell let Mike Easterly's utility bill slide because Easterly was a big campaign supporter, he should have said so. If he wanted to say that Easterly was a low-class, evil, stinking piece of human sewage slum-lord who pocketed his tenants utility payments instead of sending them to the city, he should have said so. If he wanted to say that Easterly and Jewell attend the same church and are big buddies, he should have said so. I mean, let's face it, if you attack somebody, you do it like a man. It's called a fight. You ask someone to look at your thumb and then you cold-cock him. Any high school kid knows how to do it.

If not for Jerry Hunt's telling a story about a constituent almost losing 300 gallons of ice cream, they would have gone outside and fought it out. And while Keith has age on his side, Jewell looks like a man who can handle his own; he outweighs Keith by a good two hundred pounds and certainly looks like he's been in a couple of close ones.

Nothing was resolved at this meeting and most of the spectators walked away shaking their heads, that is, the ones who weren't laughing hysterically at their elected officials.

I began to feel sorry for Mrs. Smith. She sat on the left hand corner of the table and tried to make some sense of the entire procedure, but her eyes darted around like a trapped animal ready to dive for cover when the shooting started.

Fred Burton wanted to see a fight. he sat back in his chair, linked his fingers together behind his head, and grinned.

And Fox started the whole thing. Rumor has it he also intends to run for mayor. His ploy is to make Keith and Jewell look like uncontrollable itinerant berry pickers so he can use it against them. I doubt the citizens of Lebanon will buy into this gambit since everyone knew what Fox was doing, but no one understood a word he said.

"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro."

-Raoul Duke

I really don't remember who said that, but it wraps up the city council. If General Hatton had known his statue was going to stand in the center of Lebanon, he would have gone to Singapore and become a fisherman.

No one here gets out alive.

XXX