YACK on: Gifts

Here's my column from last week's Nantucket Independent. Edited slightly. :-)

It’s that time of year again. The season of giving. There are so many people on the YACK gift list. In fact, the YACKon.com Santa (which is actually a relational database and artificial intelligence expert system written in PERL) has been making a list and checking it twice. In no particular order, here are the Christmas gifts that we at YACKon.com would give out if we had not spent all our available cash on Red Bull and iTunes downloads. (Since we have no money, we can make the gifts we would have given as extravagant as we want!)

First, let’s start with the Board of Selectmen. To Chairman Whitey Willauer we would give a pair of really nice running shoes so that he can continue to keep up the incredible pace he has set for the Board in 2006. Many of us on YACKon.com are stunned at all that this board has been able to achieve this year. It hasn’t always been pretty, but it’s been very, very effective. Kind of like the New England Patriots. Well done.

For Selectman and Innkeeper, Michael Kopko, we would give a new pair of boots so he can continue to kick some posterior in town government, which was something he promised to do on the evening he was elected last spring. So far, so good, Citizen Kopko.

For Catherine Flanagan Stover, we give a genuine jewel-encrusted throne to replace the ejector seat which apparently has lost all of its evil powers (perhaps the BOS took my advice and hired a voodoo priest to exercise the evil spirits from that seat).

Doug Bennett receives a new suit, a new tie and a new sheet of 4 x 8 plywood for any future campaigning he may do. Doug got 3,000 votes in his Senate race this year without spending a whole lot of money. Well done, sir! Anyone counting him out of politics in the future is placing a sucker bet.

For Brian Chadwick we have the entire, unabridged works of Keats, Shelly and Wadsworth to go the rather professorial, be-speckled, bow-tied look he’s been sporting lately. Plus it will give him something to read besides the town charter.

For the Sewer Advisory Committee members (a.k.a., the Sewer Dwarves) and the town government study committee members (a.k.a., the Government Elves) and the Car Limit Advisory Committee (a.k.a. the poor suffering bastards who can't win either way) we wish we had the cash to buy everyone a three-week, all-expense-paid trip to some remote and beautiful tropical island. Your hard work has been a wonderful gift to this island. You deserve a vacation!

For Dr. Sarah Oktay, Director of the U-Mass Field Station, and a member of the Conservation Commission and a Clean Team Co-captain we would give a $200,000 trip on Richard Branson’s "Virgin Galactic" spaceliner charter scheduled to begin in 2008, so she can look down on the earth and see all of the good work she’s been doing in one glance. (We would give the same gift to all of the wonderful folks at thee Maria Mitchell Association, the Land Council, the Land Bank, Conservation Foundation and everyone else who works hard to ensure that Nantucket remains a wondrous ecological jewel. If we had the money.)

Captain Blair Perkins receives a full degree in meteorology. He deserves it given all of the incredibly accurate weather reports he’s been sharing with the yackon.com readers this year.

For selectman candidate, Patty Roggeveen, we give a copy of Dale Carnegie’s book “How to Win Friends and Influence People.” Note that there is no chapter on the best method for accusing the Town Clerk’s office or the Chairman of the Board of Selectmen of malfeasance and vote tampering when requesting a recount.

For traffic planner, Mike Burns, we give a restored 1975 Chrysler Cordoba (with rich, Corinthian leather seats), in which he can do donuts around the new Sparks Avenue roundabout late at night when no one is looking.

For Planning Board Alternates, Charity Benz, John Wagley and Jason Flanagan, we would hire the services of top legal mind Alan Dershowitz, who will work on their behalf to sue the Planning Board for defamation of character, a violation of their civil and trampling upon their constitutional rights. Or settle for a huge undisclosed sum. Or a public apology.

For Planning Board chairman Donald Visco, we would give him (secretly) a whoopee cushion so that the next time he gets out of his chair to raise his voice and point at an alternate, he can sit down and make a noise that befits his recent service on the board.

For town Administrator, Libby Gibson, we would give a gift card so that she can go shopping for a whole new wardrobe. Not that her current style isn’t very smart and attractive. But if she is going to get a new title of Town Manager, it might be a good idea for her to have a whole new wardrobe to go with it. And let’s throw in a new car while we’re at it. And a spa weekend. (And, Libby, if you can think of anything else, let me know.)

Aaron Marcavitch, the New Housing Office Director would receive a home of his very own so that he and his wife, who are wonderful assets for the community, can stay here forever and raise a family. We at YACKon.com feel that it is rather ironic that Aaron will be working hard to find housing for others while still renting himself.

To my fellow columnist, Dan Drake, the Lighthouse keeper, I would give a gift certificate to the pet store in the Cape Cod Mall so that he can purchase several more animals with which to converse in his columns. It is thought that perhaps he may be missing the goldfish perspective in town politics and the ferret voice is woefully underrepresented.

And, finally, to Dreamland owner and developer Hiram Zahavi we would give a Day-Timer® scheduler and planner, so that he can actually have a snowball’s chance in hell of opening the Dreamland Theater for the summer of 2007.

To everyone else, we wish happiness and joy this holiday season as well as a prosperous and healthy new year.

YACK on.

Grant Sanders is the Host of YACK, The Nantucket Online Community at yackon.com and he hopes he receives a new, shiny, black MacBook laptop for Christmas. And one of those huge chocolate bars from Trader Joe’s in Hyannis. And peace on earth. His views are his own and may not necessarily reflect the editorial stance of The Nantucket Independent. Except the peace on earth bit.