Bubba Whartz

By Morgan Stinemetz

BUBBA HAS A COST GUARD HEARING

It was just a minor infraction that the Coast Guard tagged Bubba Whartz, the skipper of the home-built, ferro-cement sloop Right Guard, with. Something about the flares on his boat being a few weeks out of date. If Bubba had been a little more laid back, he could have gotten off with a warning, just a piece of paper that officially said, “Don’t do this again.”

According to Doobie, the baretenderette at The Blue Moon Bar, that was not how it went down, however.

“You know how stubborn Bubba is when he thinks that he has had his freedom stepped upon?” was the way she phrased it after she had put a glass of suds on the bar for me and collected my money.

“I know he has some strange ideas of just what personal liberty entails,” I said. “There was a time a few years back when he did kind of a vigil on Right Guard to show his support of a bunch of people in Montana who were holding out against the law up there. I think it had something to do with the right to bear arms or, maybe, an overdue library book. Whatever it was, Bubba thought those people’s rights had been abridged.”

“I don’t know what gets into Bubba from time to time, but he sure makes it hard for himself when he gets in a snit. He doesn’t know how to resolve conflicts very well, but he sure likes the getting even part,” Doobie said.

“You are right about that,” I agreed. “I can think of a half dozen times he has settled scores with motorboat people or jet skiers or dock masters. Sometimes it wasn’t pretty. So, what is it that I heard about Bubba having a problem with the Coast Guard?”

“He was sailing in Sarasota Bay when he was stopped for a safety inspection by a Coast Guard boat. They found that some flares on the boat were apparently not legal. Something like that. Bubba came in here and told me that the flares were only just out of date and he thought the Coast Guard was picking on him,” the bartenderette explained. “He said that he didn’t want to have an infraction on his record, him being a licensed Coast Guard captain and all. He said that he wanted a hearing on the matter, which is, I guess, his right. Then he asked me if I would appear with him as a character witness.”

“A character witness?” “Well, he’s a good customer,” she replied. “So, was there really a hearing?” “Yes, there was. It took place in St. Petersburg, at the Coast Guard facility downtown just day before yesterday. It didn’t last long though, but it seemed like an eternity.” “What happened,” I asked. “Bubba told me that he had a plan for making quick work of the hearing, but he didn’t tell me what it was,” Doobie said. “What was the plan?” “The week before the hearing, Bubba started on a strict diet of Mexican food. Lots of beans. Then he added cucumbers and broccoli to that. By the time the hearing came around, he was like a ticking time bomb, ready to explode. But he didn’t tell me about it ahead of time. We went up to the hearing in separate cars anyway.” “What happened in the hearing room?” “The hearing officer, a Lieutenant Commander, called the hearing to order and took our names. He also received into evidence one of the out-of-date flares that Bubba brought with him. The officer was reading the Coast Guard regulations regarding flares into the record when Bubba had a gas attack. It was noisy, of course. The officer

“Bubba has been banned stopped for a second and from The Blue Moon Bar until then went on. Five seconds later Bubba fired off another he gets his bowels back in order. salvo. The hearing officer He has another six days to go,” said the baretenderette. got up and opened a window. I was glad that he did. The air in that hearing room was not safe to breathe.” “How did Bubba react to this?” I wanted to know. “Like it hadn’t occurred,” Doobie replied. “But we all knew that it had. It is just that no one wanted to mention it within the context of an official federal hearing.” “That makes sense to me,” I agreed. “How can you make reference to something that is intangible anyway. What Bubba did couldn’t be addressed in a normal way, could it?” “Most of the things that Bubba does cannot be addressed in a normal way,” Doobie affirmed. She was, of course, right. “What happened next?” “The officer was trying to conduct this hearing in a military fashion, kind of spit and polish, and Bubba kept gumming up the works. At one point, the hearing officer got out a pack of matches and lit a couple, but other than burning real brightly for a bit they did not make any difference. Sometimes we heard what Bubba was doing. Sometimes we didn’t. But in every case we knew what he had done within seconds. It was unmistakable.”

“Beans and cucumbers and broccoli will do that to a man,” I said.

“Well, we’d been in the hearing for about fi ve minutes,” she continued, “when the hearing offi cer tried to dispel the stench by desperate measures. He set off the fl are of Bubba’s that was on his desk. I guess he fi gured that if a few matches are good enough to get rid of a small stench in a bathroom, then a fl are would be of suffi cient strength to do the same thing in a hearing room that was about ten times the size of a bathroom.”

“Makes sense to me,” I commented.

“It made sense to me, too,” said Doobie. “But no one reckoned on the amount of gas in the room. When the hearing offi cer set off Bubba’s out-of-date fl are, it burned so hot from all of the methane gas available that it set off the sprinkler system. Pretty soon we were all soaking wet, the hearing was over and a fi re alarm had gone off. As we got out into the hallway, there were some Coast Guard enlisted men running our way with fi re extinguishers. They were not necessary. The hearing offi cer had heaved the fl are out the open window. It landed in a lifeboat and set that on fi re.”

“That was it?”

“Well, not quite. I was wearing a white blouse and no bra, so I got a lot of attention from the Coast Guard people after it became translucent, but Bubba told them to back off. I was his personal friend, he said, and he would take care of getting me dried out.”

“Did he?”

“Yeah, he took me outside into the sunshine.”

“What about the hearing on Bubba’s fl ares?” I wanted to know.

“I don’t think the Coast Guard will have Bubba back to fi nish the interrupted hearing in our lifetime,” said Doobie. “They are not stupid. Because of, as Bubba described it, a pissant little infraction the Coast Guard in St. Petersburg will have to spend lots of money getting that hearing room refurbished from the water damage, and then someone will have to write reports about the fi re and why it happened. Then there is the lifeboat. Besides, Bubba said, they didn’t have any evidence anymore. The hearing offi cer had expended Bubba’s fl are trying to get rid of the smell.

“No, I think that the Coast Guard has had all the Bubba Whartz they can stand,” Doobie surmised.

“How about you?” I asked.

“Bubba has been banned from The Blue Moon Bar until he gets his bowels back in order. He has another six days to go,” said the baretenderette.

You know, Doobie’s story was worth the price of another beer, which I had. Without Bubba being around it was like a two-for-one sale.

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