Talking presidential politics with Skeeter Skates and The Ryo Morning Coffee Club

Uh! Oh! I could tell by the sound of the phone who was on the other end. Skeeter Skates, owner and operator of the Skeeter Skates Tree Stump Removal and Plow Repair in Ryo, Georgia. When Skeeter calls, the phone doesn’t just ring. It jumps. Skeeter can do that to phones and to people. I assume most people in the stump removal and plow repair business are like that.

In addition to his business responsibilities, Skeeter Skates also serves as the presiding chair of the Ryo Morning Coffee Club, a collection of Great Americans which includes Walleye, who runs the bait shop over in Red Bud; Booger Bledsoe, who operates a local roadside vegetable stand on State Route 136 near Sugar Valley; and Uncle Coot, recently retired from the porta potty transportation industry.

Skeeter doesn’t have much respect for anyone who can’t tell a Brush Grubber Xtreme-Plus Tree Stump Remover from a 24-inch Heavy-Duty Steel Bark Spud TMW-08, or anyone who makes a living without getting grease under their fingernails, and that obviously includes me. But without admitting it, politics baffle him. That’s the reason for his calls.

“Hoss,” he says without preamble. “Me and the boys were talking a little politics this morning and we naturally thought of you, since you know as little about politics as anybody there is. Heh! Heh!” He loves that line.

“Anyhow, with the presidential conventions done,” Skeeter said, “we’ve been talking about starting one of them Political Action Committees. You know, where you pool your money and give it to one candidate. This was Walleye’s suggestion. He says it would give us direct access into the White House when we needed it. We need to be sure whoever becomes president knows about the issues concerning plow repair and stump removals, the live bait business and selling vegetables on the side of the road.”

I noticed that Skeeter didn’t include porta potty transportation among the list of issues they would want the president to be well-versed on. He said they were working on that. It has been a bit of a challenge, Skeeter admitted. After decades of transporting porta potties, Uncle Coot is a bit of an olfactory challenge. He sits downwind at the Ryo Morning Coffee Club and refuses to bathe in the Oostanaula River, as has been suggested. He says he’s waiting to find the Lord and then he’ll be baptized in the river. Skeeter said he and the boys don’t know about the Lord, but there’s not a Baptist preacher within 50 miles of Ryo that will go near Uncle Coot, smelling the way he does.

Skeeter said that before putting their hard-earned money into a Political Action Committee, they wanted to know more about the candidates. “I know that old orange-haired boy is running again,” Skeeter said. “We’ve discussed throwing our support to him. But if you happen to be talking to him sometime, tell him he needs to be careful about insulting people. He comes to Ryo and says something ugly about the plow repair business, he’s going to get on my wrong side quick.”

I thought it best not to reply. Trump isn’t likely to show up in Ryo, and if he did, I suspect he doesn’t know enough about repairing plows to insult that art form, although I wouldn’t put it past him to try. And then there is the fact Trump doesn’t know I exist, which makes it difficult to have a conversation with him.

“We’ve also discussed that woman that’s running against him,” Skeeter told me. “She seems a pleasant enough person, but how come she don’t just come out and say she is an American, instead of a Black American or a Jamaican American or South Asian American or all that other stuff? If you talk to her, tell her that ain’t going to play well in Ryo. Our feeling is you are either an American or you are not.”

I told Skeeter I would pass along those thoughts if and when I next saw Kamala Harris. What I didn’t tell him was that might be awhile since she doesn’t know I exist, either.

Skeeter said he had to go. “Unlike you newspaper boys sitting around writing fancy words that nobody reads, I have to work for a living. Them stumps ain’t going to dig themselves up.”

I will be anxious to see who the Ryo Morning Coffee Club PAC decides to support. And if Uncle Coot finds the Lord and the Oostanaula River.

You can reach Dick Yarbrough at dick@dickyarbrough.com or at P.O. Box 725373, Atlanta, Georgia 31139.