Angela Tarbell Durrell

It’s only a couple of short weeks until the final ill-gotten vote is tallied and the newly installed Mayor earns himself a year of mockery, hilarity, and abject poverty. That doesn’t seem to be deterring the contending—and contentious—candidates one itty bitty whit. In politics, dark corners and closets are plundered, scandals and secrets spilled out on the floor of public consumption for all to see, and the flotsam and jetsam of their misbegotten lives fodder for bored people with wild imaginations and nothing else to do but talk about them until throats are hoarse and keyboards exhausted.

Bronco Bob and Straight Shootin’ Carter Cash both got into the Super Bowl spirit with major events over the weekend, where even more scuttlebutt came out during helpings of spaghetti and plates of hot wings. Carter Cash’s extravaganza began at Dam Corner for breakfast, where he gladhanded and backslapped hapless patrons to such a degree that hardly anyone could keep food on their forks. He rounded out the day at Dave’s Sports Bar for a Super Bowl Eve Party, where supporters and gate-crashers alike got the adrenaline going by watching the fights and then staying for the Time Machine band. Spent and utterly broke, they managed to drag themselves home from their gluttony and excess.

Whiskey Flat mayor candidate Gentleman Jim schmoozes a waitress at Cheryl’s Diner in Kernville Friday Night.

Not to be outdone, Bronco Bob’s Friday through Saturday marathon of Spaghetti dinners at Wallace and Kernville Cafeterias featured raffles, auctions, and plenty of vitriolic denial and casting of aspersions. Outraged at the ongoing claims from Gentleman Jim of their familial connections, Bob gamely soldiered through two evenings of pasta-laden questions, suppositions, and speculation. Towards the end of it his hat went from firmly fixed atop his noble crown to leaning slightly askew, as if having been pushed back in haggard frustration.

It can be surmised that much of his aggravation lies in a recent photo that surfaced from unnamed sources and which has been making its way throughout the Valley. Gentleman Jim insists that it is a depiction of himself and his alleged brother, Bronco Bob, when they were just young pups.

“It’s not the sharpest picture, I know,” admits Jim. “Mom worked hard, but we grew up poor.”

Bronco Bob, harangued by partygoers wielding meatballs and garlic bread, denies vehemently any connection between the two. Predictably, Jim refutes such heinous denial. “He’s trying to get rid of me,” he scoffs, “But he’s not gonna. And he’s blind if he thinks I’m the only one that sees it. We were both at the Exchange Club last week, and when Joe introduced us, he called me Bronco Bob and him Gentleman Jim! We look that much alike that people confuse us all the time.”

Which makes one wonder just how many times the wrong candidate may have gotten the wrong bribes, but that’s another story.

While attempting to prove actual shared DNA, and perhaps drive Bronco Bob to madness in the process, Gentleman Jim may have his own problems looming. During the 24th anniversary celebration of Cheryl’s Diner, a scandalous bit of information was discovered after perhaps a tad too many hot wings—Tabasco seems to make the tongue wag more than usual.

After the prize drawings, prosecutable attempts at the two-step, and truly earsplitting karaoke, it was overheard in an adjoining booth, in hushed whispers, that Chuck Wagon Charlie may not be helping Jim’s campaign out of the goodness of his heart. He’s been spending quite a bit of time of late with Lady Rhonda, Jim’s wife, at the campaign headquarters, and our source outright declared that the two may be tucking more than event flyers in their arms.

“Jim’s too much of a gentleman to notice,” the source, whom could not be identified due to a profusion of party balloons, continued to whisper. “Maybe it has something to do with his drinking all that goat’s milk when he was growing up.”

Or it could be that he’s also too busy saving people from raging fires. The day of the revelations of Miss Rhonda’s activities and the potentially explosive family photograph, Jim was seen helping to bring four kids to safety as firefighters fought to control the raging blaze at Wofford Heights Mini-Storage. Once the children were out of harm’s way, he then took up a water hose and helped Tom Poplawski’s Sierra Properties yard, which was terrifyingly close to the conflagration.

“That’s got to be worth a chunk of votes!” one bystander remarked. “I guess that’s why they call him Gentleman Jim.”

Apparently indefatigable after what was a very interesting week, and equally oblivious to Chuck Wagon Charlie’s devastating charm on women, Gentleman Jim continues to forge ahead with his efforts to become Mayor as well as prove his family heritage. Hot on his heels are Carter Cash and Bronco Bob—each for different reasons, perhaps. Every one of them seems to be attempting to outdo the others in sheer scale of schedule, and it presents the question of just how many of them will be standing by election time, and which ones might collapse under the weight of exhaustion, intrigue, and indiscretions.

Candidate Schedules:

Gentleman Jim: Friday, Feb. 6 Spaghetti Dinner and Auction, Youth Center (behind VFW) 5-8:30pm; Saturday, Feb 7 Shady Lanes Luncheon (Lake Isabella Blvd) 2-6 pm.

Straight Shootin’ Carter Cash: Wed. Feb 4 – Paradise Cove Dinner, 5-9 pm; Thursday Feb 5 – Reel Cinema Special Showing of “The Neverending Story” 4:30 pm ($5 Donation), Friday Feb 6 – Moose Lodge Auction and Tri-Tip Dinner ($10), Friday Feb. 6tth – The Sportsman Inn Bar, 10pm to whenever. Saturday Feb 7th – Kern River Saloon Karaoke, 9pm to whenever

Bronco Bob: Friday Feb 6 – My Place Restaurant 5-7 pm, Dinner served by teachers.