A special hall of fame should be set aside for pro athletes who return to their hometowns. Not the muscleheads who show up like conquering heroes, sign a few autographs and leave again. We save our admiration for the ex-jocks who come home, settle down with their families and contribute to the community.
It’s enough to make even the most crusty Schnoz grab a hanky and blow.
Retired NFL leather-catcher Dane Looker returned to Meekerville and recently won a seat on the Puyallup School Board.
Now long-time pro leather-slinger Jon Kitna is back in Tacoma to teach math at his alma mater, Lincoln High, and coach there. (Unlikely in that order of importance, in the school’s eyes.)
Kitna’s story has some parallels with the 1978-81 television drama “The White Shadow,” in which a former pro basketball player takes a job as the hoops coach at an innercity high school.
For an even better comparison, rewind the TV tape a few more years, to 1975.
Former student Gabe Kotter is hired by his old high school in Brooklyn, N.Y., to teach the Sweathogs, a diverse group of urban teens. Madcap hijinx and poignant life lessons ensue.
Updated for 2012, the story shall feature the Sweat Abes and be called “Welcome Back, Kitna.”
Don’t like our idea for a TV sitcom? We have seven words for you, from the immortal Vinny Barbarino: Up your nose with a rubber hose.
Joke of the week: What do you call it when thousands of Gig Harborites are stranded on their side of the bridge for 6 1/2 hours? Not nearly long enough.
Love gone cold: Had to laugh when Puget Sound Energy told customers last week they should post their power outage complaints to the company’s Facebook Wall. That’s what our teenage nostril says when she’s too busy to take our calls or text messages.
One PSE customer approached the task with more good humor than most shivering billpayers felt.
Jenny Jeffries of Puyallup posted, in part: “Dear Sir and/or Madam, you know, power broke up with me at 5 am, with no warning! Just up and left. I thought we were happy and I considered it to be a serious relationship ... Please let me know if you talk to power, and let it know I’d do anything to get it back.”
PSE poobahs were touched by Jeffries’ jilted love note. After power stopped playing hard-to-get, VP Steve Secrist replied to her: “Dear Jenny, I confirmed that you and electricity are together again and we are very happy for you! The relationship you have with electricity is so very important to us ... Please don’t feel like power avoided you. Power was actually desperately trying to reach you.”
(Cue Peaches and Herb music: Reeeeuniteddd and it feels so gooood!)
Sheesh, what a couple of deluded romantics. As someone once said: “The price of love is more than most hearts can afford.”
PSE forgot to mention it may soon cost 8.1-percent more for all us pitifully dependent saps to keep power turned on.
Joke of the week, part deux: What do you call thousands of Gig Harborites desperate to get off the peninsula after 6½ hours stranded? Good to Row!
Two scoops of irony: One of our favorite winter sights is pols grazing at the state Capitol with free ice cream dripping from their chins on the dairy farmers’ lobbying day.
This year’s Sch-moo-zefest was Wednesday, the same day a House committee was set to consider a bill restricting state buildings from serving unhealthy foods such as high-fat milk or ice cream. (Lawmakers delayed it until Thursday and were looking at amendments.)
Tacoma Democrat Laurie Jinkins is trying again this year to get it passed.
Careful, LJ. You think wading into the issue of gender and marriage was sticky? That’s a cinch by comparison. You can have a legislator’s vanilla swirl cone when you pry it from his cold, dead fingers.
Don’t mess with sacred cows.
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