Governor Rick Scott has announced his latest tactic to rescue Florida from dire financial straits. After declaring Eustis–a rural, tea-party infested central town–the new state capital, Scott called a press conference at his Lake County office to reveal that Jacksonville is no more. Scott overturned the city’s 1968 consolidation with Duval County, and the two were granted an annulment by the small but feisty pastor the Governor carries around in his breast pocket.

At the funeral, few spoke in honor of my uncle. The shame! After all the man had done for everyone present! When all those tender spoken anecdotes added up to so little, such a mite in a man’s eye, I decided to liven up things in the dead man’s name. Having died almost childless, half-friendless, a loner in a small town far from the bustling metropolis he’d been born into, the thought of him going into oblivion without a proper sendoff, haunted me. So I stood up unsteadily.

Odd how a small thing can stir a huge memory. One Saturday morning, on NPR’s “It’s Only a Game,” the talk had turned to the versatility of a noted sports writer, who was not, said commentator Glenn Stout, “just a one-note pony.” My body jacked bolt upright in its recliner, my Ovaltine sloshed into my lap, and my mind barely choked off an expletive so crude that it is now commonly reserved for strolling gangs of teenage girls. One Note Pony? Who in the name of Gypsy Rose Lee would possibly remember!

Tuneful ponies are, of course, rare, and nowadays seldom noticed.

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