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Cat Racing Stymies Bubba’s Ardor
Though The Blue Moon Bar was doing
a land office business and the joint
was jumping, my yachting friend,
live-aboard, live-alone sailor and proselytizer
of the efficacy of ferrocement
sailboats, was off by
himself, at the end of the bar.
Bubba Whartz, U.S. licensed
Coast Guard captain and
generally opinionated individual,
was not joining in
the conversations and
having fun. He was not
laughing at the jokes.
He could have been
in a soundproof,
plastic cocoon for
all the interaction
he was not having.
His remoteness reminded me of a back-in-the-’50s television
show that my mom liked to watch, Twenty One,
wherein one of the contestants was put in an “isolation
booth.” The show featured Jack Barry as the host and quizmaster,
but, unhappily, the whole thing was scripted and
rigged. Charles Van Doren, one of the contestants, became
a national icon on Twenty One, had his picture on the cover
of TIME and even had a regular guest slot on the Today
show. Then the entire, flimsy quiz show house of cards
came tumbling down when a dissatisfied “loser” blew the
whistle. Twenty One was television fraud. Probably not the
first. Certainly not the last.
Later, in the early 1960s, after his public dénouement, I
occasionally used to see Van Doren in a bar/restaurant in
southwestern Massachusetts. He was totally recognizable
and completely unapproachable, ensconced, even in public,
in an isolation booth of his own devising.
I don’t often feel sorry for Bubba. He is frequently hoist
by his own petard. If anyone truly ever came up with the
quote, “When you’re out there on thin ice, there are times
when you just have to dance,” it would have been Whartz.
He participated in Key West Race Week on a luxurious racing
yacht by conning the skipper and crew into believing
that he was with an R&D team of somehigh-tech sailing
Everything Above Deck
Sailboat Masts,
Booms, Rigging
& Hardware
www.usspars.com
386-462-3760
800-928-0786
rick@usspars.com
Visit us at the St. Pete Boat Show
company whose
name was confidential.
He has sailed with
Fidel Castro, but
didn’t recognize
the elusive
Cuban leader. He
has also beat the
rap of a Coast
Guard investigation
by eating
huge amounts
of Mexican
food before an
inquiry and forcing the
hand of the investigating officer
who wanted to get rid of the eyewatering
stench from Bubba’s resultant flatulence.
The officer set off a flare inside a Coast Guard
hearing room, and that set off the sprinkler system.
The hearing was abandoned. Bubba skated.
I sat down on the bar stool next to Bubba and offered
him an inducement to talk. “Buy you a beer, Bubba” I
asked.
“Please,” he replied.
I caught Doobie’s eye after a moment and held up two
fingers. In other establishments what I gave may have
passed for the peace sign. Doobie, correctly, took it to mean
two beers. When it comes to deciding between ideology and
profit, Doobie unerringly makes the right choice.
“Thanks,” I said, when she deposited two glasses of
suds in front of us. Bubba said nothing. He didn’t even look
at Doobie as she walked away. I certainly did. I always do.
Bubba, he said nothing.
“Sport, you seem to be off your game some today,” I
commented to Bubba. “What’s up”
Bubba took a solemn slug of suds from his glass and
sighed, “Women.”
“Women in general Just one woman”
“In this case, just one,” replied the yachtsman. “But she
took my breath away, I can tell you. Blonde hair down to her
shoulders. A smile that reminded me of the sun coming up
on a clear spring day. Tourmaline green eyes that could contribute
to global warming. And a body that a professional
New York dancer would be jealous of. She laughed in a way
that made the word delight seem meaningless, and she
moved with the fluidity of quicksilver.”
“Bubba, you are talking about perfection in ways I have
never heard you express yourself before. She was that beautiful,
that stunning”
“The best,” Bubba affirmed.
“Where and when did you meet her Any dates”
“I met her this afternoon at a cozy bar on Longboat Key
I have never been to before, The Paragon. I never asked her
for a date. There was no point,” said Capt. Whartz.
“Why not” I inquired. “If you got a ‘no’ you were in
the same place you were before you started talking to her,
chatting her up.”
“Like I said, there was no hope. None,” grimaced
Bubba.
12 October 2012 SOUTHWINDS www.southwindsmagazine.com