by Harold Branam

The question around Tybee recently has been what to do about the public gymnasium that voters thought they disapproved but that nevertheless is under construction‹whether to scrap it at an estimated loss of $750,000 or to go ahead and build it at an estimated cost of $1,500,000 (not counting overruns).

Now that plans are to complete the building, the next question is what to do with it. Do we make it into a monument of government waste and inefficiency? Do we use it to illustrate the scientific principle that government abhors unspent SPLOST funds?

I doubt that such a monument would attract tourists. After all, people everywhere already have examples of such monuments in their own hometowns. Instead, let us examine a few other suggestions for use of the building that I have heard around the island.

The first suggestion is to turn the gymnasium into a public toilet. The argument is that the public facilities on Tybee Pier and at North Beach are inadequate and, besides, they¹re always filthy.

By building upscale toilets in the gymnasium, we could charge $1.00 per visit and recoup some of the cost of the facility. We might also be able to scrimp on the initial cost of construction by routing the sewer lines to discharge into City Hall.

A second suggestion is to make the gymnasium into a hangover holding tank. The Tybee police reports are always full of drunks being picked up off the street or arrested for speeding. Some place is needed to hold them until they sober up.

This suggestion does have merit. The beauty of it is that it could be combined with the first suggestion. We could cut operating costs by flushing the whole place down with a hose every morning or at least before every City Council meeting.

But, while these proposals are exciting, some people might feel that they lash out a little unfairly and indiscriminately at government. They thus seem symptomatic of a deep-seated, free-floating anger permeating Tybee. For that reason, a third suggestion sounds more practical.

The third suggestion is to recycle the gym into a Center for Anger Management. The center would of course be named after officials who originally approved construction of the gym. The center would feature pictures, effigies, and piñatas of these same officials, on which clients could draw mustaches and at which they could throw eggs and tomatoes.

This third suggestion has also been combined with the first two. But I had rather not go there or even speculate about the nature of the missiles that would be hurled.

RADICAL PAST CATCHES UP WITH COLUMNIST

The other day I received a letter from someone I had almost forgotten about. But apparently she hadn¹t forgotten about me, since in the letter she threatened to expose my radical past unless I cooperated with her. To defuse such blackmail, I am herewith reprinting the letter in its entirety:

Dear Freedom-Lover:

Hi. So you thought you could hide out down there among those retrograde Crackers in reactionary Georgia. Have they discovered the twentieth century yet? How can you stand to live in such a backward place?

I know your ancestors were anarchists and Wobblies, and your father and mother were a United Mine Worker and Baptist preacher¹s daughter. You attended the first work-study college, founded by abolitionists, and an English university where students egged the socialist prime minister for being too conservative.

You also attended the People¹s University and later taught there. But you were fired for going on strike, marching on the picket line, and confronting the university president, whom you addressed as Pete. Based on this résumé, we want you to help us in our nonviolent protests. Our plan is to levitate the Tybee bomb and use it to disrupt the upcoming Gang of Eight Summit. We need a local secret agent.

If you refuse to help us, I will blow your cover as a member of the Tybee School of Postmodern Thought. But I believe you are a true radical and will remember the good old days.

Freedom O¹Dare, Chairwoman

Committee to Save the World from Global Capitalism

By publishing this letter, I hereby disavow any connection with this organization and its plans. I also refuse to be blackmailed into doing what they want. Most of all, I deny anything and everything this woman might say about the good old days.

GOING TO MARS

It was interesting to hear President Bush plans to go to Mars, but not much of a surprise. I always thought he was from Mars. So his plans are just an excuse to return there at taxpayer expense.

Mars, named after the god of war, is an appropriate planet for Mr. Bush. His plans to go there are obviously an effort to divert our attention from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq that drag on and consume American lives. Or does Bush expect to find bin Laden, a fellow Martian, there?

Speaking of taxpayer expense, going to Mars should just about finish bankrupting the nation. Especially when you add on the contracts to rebuild Mars that will go to Bush¹s corporate buddies. Maybe, after all, I will join the Committee to Save the World from Global Capitalism.