The Civic
Responsibility Issue
SandBaggers Stay On The Right
Track
By Horace J. Digby -- Editor-in-Chief -- SandBagger News.
Let those other Magazines have their swimsuit
issues. SandBagger Mag-e-zine dedicates this issue to
the question of "Civic Responsibility." [Editor's note:
Our publisher is quick to
point out that "Civic
Responsibility" is not actually a question, it being only two
words long and not actually ending in a question mark.]
One question that we
here at SandBagger Mag-e-zine get almost every issue is,
"What are the SandBaggers?" We get that question a
lot. And mostly it's from the same people, who keep
asking it over and over, day after day. We also get it a
lot from our parole officers, but that's not the point.
The point is that the question is getting old. We can't
go on answering it all the time.
In this issue, that question and many others
will be
answered.
So
the next time someone asks, we can just point to this
issue. O.K.?
To answer the
question, we take you now to a typical Friday meeting of
the SandBaggers. The meeting is already in progress, so
please, no whispering in the
back.
Herb Hadley: [former state
legislator] "Why did the city buy a full-page ad in the
Daily News? All it says is that we
have a library and some buildings. "
Walt
Naze: [sign company executive] "That ad
had loads of information."
Herb
Hadley: "Why should the city spend $400 to publish
information that is already in the phone book? That's
what I want to know."
Kurt
Anagnostou: [current city councilperson] "The
cost was closer to $1,500,
Herb."
Herb
Hadley: "Who makes the decision to waste public
money like that?"
Kurt
Anagnostou: "The City Council approved it at the
request of our public relations person."
Herb
Hadley: "No wonder the city needs a public relations
person, if it is going to keep wasting our money like
that."
Don
Cianci: [photographer] "The ad would be good for new
people just coming into town."
Joe
Daggy: [attorney] "I think some new people
move here about every other week."
David
Dicks: [Anagnostou's nephew, visiting from
Denver] "I liked the ad. It was a tour
of Longview without leaving the breakfast
table."
Herb
Hadley: "Who are you?"
Frank
King: [travel agent] "David is new in
town."
Walt Naze:
"He's Kurt's nephew from Denver."
Dwain
Buck: [erosion control contractor, speaking on his
cell phone] "I can't hear you. . . I'll pass the
phone to Joe."
Joe
Daggy: "What Dwain? I didn't hear
you. [Daggy wasn't kidding, then he took the
phone] "Hello?"
Roland
Richards: [retired restaurateur—on the phone]
"When I got down here to Florida to visit my son, it turned
out that he lives in a gated community with a security code,
and I didn't have the . . ."
Joe
Daggy: "Dave, it's for you," [Daggy hands the phone
to Dave Spurgeon, a C.P.A.]
Dave
Spurgeon: "Hello?"
Roland
Richards: "So I've been sleeping in some bushes
outside the gate, then I found this spot in the
engine room of the Queen Mary II, so I've . .
."
Dave
Spurgeon: [passing the phone to Herb Hadley]
"It's for you, Herb."
Herb
Hadley: "For me? Who is
it?"
Dave
Spurgeon: "Some Bush supporter from
Florida"
Roland
Richards: ". . . the guard at the gate still won't
let me in, and my son's phone won't accept calls from my cell
phone because it has a blocked number . . ."
Herb
Hadley: [passing the phone to Tim South another
attorney] "I think he's trying to sell us
something."
Tim
South: "I think you have a wrong
number."
Roland
Richards: ". . . but if I crawl under the gate, the
guard won't. . ." [Click. Buzzzzzzzzzz.]
Tim
South: "Dwain, here's your phone back. It was
some guy trying to sell us a gate."
Frank
King: "So, Kurt, you really do have a nephew from
Denver? I thought you were kidding when we booked that
24 hour layover there last year."
David Dicks: "I just
got here yesterday, so that ad really works for
me."
Herb
Hadley: "Is the city going to run full page ads
every time a city councilperson's relative comes to
town?"
Kurt
Anagnostou: "No Herb, just my relatives."
Herb
Hadley: "Oh, so you're showing some
restraint."
Kurt
Anagnostou: "Sure, we don't want to go overboard on
this thing."
Herb Hadley: "I
don't want to be the only one that gets upset at this waste of
public funds."
Don
Cianci: "Remember the last time Herb got this worked
up at a meeting?"
Joe
Daggy: "We had to send him a dues notice."
Don
Cianci: "Did he ever pay that? We took it to
the hospital and everything?"
Wes
Wheeler: "You guys really do that?" [Wheeler
was commenting on the long-standing SandBagger practice
of taking dues
notices to members
who are hospitalized.]
Don
Cianci: "We don't want them to get away without
paying."
Herb
Hadley: "That dues bill saved my life.
Everyone was tiptoeing around, afraid to hiccup. Then
you guys show up with a bill for dues for the next ten years,
PAYABLE IN ADVANCE! I wasn't supposed to laugh, but I
couldn't help it. Then I started getting better."
Walt
Naze: "I got one of those bills when I had my neck
surgery last year. It made me feel better. .
. Speaking of which, did Putaansuu pay his
dues?"
Herb
Hadley: "I paid them for him . .
."
Everybody: "Anonymously?"
[everybody sang out, in unison, sounding not unlike the Everly
Brothers. For the past year Hadley had been claiming
credit for various donations and civic
contributions—always saying that he had made them
"anonymously" because he didn't want people to know it was
him. Fellow Baggers finding this twisted logic
irresistible, began finishing Hadley's self-accolades, by
shouting out, "Anonymously?" on his behalf, whenever he took
credit for anything. I.e.: Herb: "I
ordered the soup." Everybody:
"Anonymously?"]
Herb
Hadley: "The Longview Housing authority just bought
another 150 units over on Dorothy Street. They are
always buying buildings and taking them off the property tax
roll. Joe Daggy: "Those are the
apartments nobody wants."
Kurt
Anagnostou: "Joe and I looked at some of
those."
Joe Daggy: "They buy property
in other cities too. Why does the Longview Housing
Authority own an apartment building in
Cathlamet?"
Dave
Spurgeon: "How do they explain that, Herb?"
Herb
Hadley: "Many of the properties they buy have
nothing to do with low-income housing. They say
the profits from their middle-income housing help support
their low income housing. If they make a profit, then
why don't they pay taxes like everybody
else?"
Don
Cianci: "Could I have some
tea?"
Herb
Hadley: "The Housing Authority pays too much for
property. They don't pay property taxes, so they can
afford to pay more than the property is worth."
Tim South: "If the Housing
Authority is buying up all the housing, why aren't they
sending us checks every month?"
Herb
Hadley: "Don't you get your
check?"
Wes
Wheeler: "How come I'm never quoted at these
meetings?" [Wheeler didn't actually say this. This is a
SandBagger Mag-e-zine convention for working in members who
aren't saying much, or in some cases aren't even at the
meeting. Wes
Wheeler and Tom Riffe hadn't been saying much, so for the next
several lines, our editorial staff has them talk about
something that has not occurred yet. This literary
technique is called "foreshadowing," except when it is done by
professional journalists like Steven Glass and Jayson
Blair. Then it is called "lying."]
Tom Riffe:
"You don't say enough."
Wes
Wheeler: "Maybe we will get quoted later, when
Spurgeon suggests that we go see Mariners play this spring."
[foreshadowing]
Tom
Riffe: "God Idea. We'll talk
then."
Dave
Spurgeon: "Why don't we take Amtrak up to another
Mariners game." [Spurgeon really said
this.]
Frank
King: "Too expensive. We're are better off
renting a van."
Don
Cianci: "Can I drive this time?" [Alluding to
concerns Dwain Buck had over Cianci's driving last
year.]
Dwain
Buck: "Oh, great."
Joe
Daggy: "Get a rig with two steering wheels so
you can both drive."
Don
Cianci: "Dwain can steer. I just want to
operate the pedals. [Cianci continued to needle
Buck] We need reservations at that Mongolian Grill in
Tacoma again." [Buck had refused to eat there after last
years outing]
Kurt
Anagnostou: "O.K., but tell them no Rice for
Tim." [Tim South had smuggled "a pocket full" of sticky
white rice back to the van and used a soda straw to shoot it
at the other Baggers]
Joe
Daggy: "It took two days to get that rice out of my
hair."
Dwain
Buck: "I had to clean the van before we returned
it."
Walt
Naze: "Why did you do that? They just check
the gas gage and the odometer."
Dwain
Buck: "So there's no gage for sticky rice all over
the inside of the van?"
Walt
Naze: "Not unless you pay
extra."
David
Dicks: "Tim did this?"
Tim
South: "Allegedly."
Wes
Wheeler: "Who's Allegedly?"
Everyone:
"Anonymously's
brother!"
