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File Under "Get a Life"

Christmas is a time for catching up with old friends, so we shouldn't have been surprised when The Gator Guy checked in. You do remember the Florida fan who moved to Knoxville for the purpose of winning over Vols fans with his collection of Gator apparel and his Gatorized car "Swamp Thing?" The guy who had his telephone listed "RGator" and went to court claiming he'd gotten booted from his Gay Street apartment for flying a Gator banner?

Well, Robert Mitton sent us the following (excerpted) greeting:, which he calls "A Volunteer Christmas."

"'Twas the night before Christmas,
and all through the shack
Not a creature wuz stirrin',
'cept the lice on muh back.
The Skoal cans wuz nailed to the
screen door with care
With hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there
The children were sleepin', all snug in their beds,
While visions of tractor pulls
danced in their heads...."
"When what to muh whiskey blind eyes
should I see
But a Chevy S-10, pulled by eight flyin' sheep.
With a fat nasty driver, so disgustin' and sick
I said 'Shoot Fire! That must be St. Nick!'
More rapid than Ex-Lax his wooly (sic) sheep came
And he belched and he holler (sic),
and he called 'em by name.
'Now CLIFFORD! Now VERNON!
Now LESTER and ENUS!
On FESTUS! On PEYTON! On ROSCOE
and CLETUS!...'"

Thanks, Gator Guy. Have fun at the Citrus Bowl.

Party Line

When the two Mikes, Ragsdale and Arms, were planning their joint Christmas open house, they compared the guest lists and thought about the worst thing that could happen. That, they agreed, would occur if Sheriff Tim Hutchison and potential opponent and former G-Man Sterling Owen IV (also known as I.V.) showed up at the same time. Nah, they decided, very little chance of that happening during a two-hour open house.

Oops.

The first guests to arrive were Sheriff Tim and his wife Jan. Right on their heels? None other than I.V.

The two lawmen were cordial and polite.

And To All a Good Night

It was also party time down at the city garage, where Grand Old Party animal Jack Barnes hosted his annual Christmas barbecue Tuesday. The grand affair starred a groaning buffet board laden with smoked ham and turkey and fixings, catered by erstwhile City Council candidate L.B. Steele. There was quite a bit of ham and not a few turkeys in the audience, too, as aspiring politicos mixed with a broad array of elected and appointed officials, has-beens, wannabes, and ain't-never-gonna-make-its. Leo Cooper and Howard "Nookie" Pinkston, accused of masterminding Jim Haslam's ouster from the Public Building Authority board, slipped in a side door and ran smack into Haslam himself. County Law Director Richard Beeler, who is up for re-election in Y2K, grinned and explained why he was being shadowed by deputy law director Mike Moyers: "He's making sure I don't have my picture taken with the governor."

The governor in question, Don Sundquist, worked the crowd, which was too full of holiday cheer to mention the dreaded T-word (taxes). And speaking of working the room, Victor Ashe was collecting signatures to get himself qualified to be a delegate to the Republican National Convention. Congressman Jimmy Duncan tied on the old feedbag, and Lillian and Richard Bean made the scene. The slenderized former clerk (who was turned out of office last year by Cathy Quist) was seen conferring with former opponent Jim Bates (who was recently terminated by Quist). There was a wide array of legislators, City Council members and County Commissioners, cops and fire fighters, including a resplendent Red Lowe, who looked like Napoleon in his gold braid-festooned uniform.

Free food never hurts, but drawing such a vast and illustrious crowd was a real testament to the clout of host Barnes, who wants to make one thing perfectly clear:

"This wasn't bought with taxpayers' money. It was my own damn money that paid for every damn bit of it."