Bubba Gets FWC Hearing in Tallahassee
L
ast month, Bubba was out of town for a couple of days attending a hearing at the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission in Tallahassee. Both Bubba and Tripwire went, driving up to Florida’s capital together. Bubba had filed a complaint with the FWC, alleging that his ferro-cement sloop had been brutally boarded by two FWC officers investigating an anonymous complaint about the use of live ammunition to start the Laser class at the Sarasota Sailing Squadron’s Labor Day Regatta in late August. A small newspaper article about the hearing, a reprint from an FWC press release, appeared in The Tallahassee Democrat. The release, like most of them, was short on substance. It merely said that after “careful consideration” the FWC hearing officer, Capt. White, had exonerated both “Mr. Whartz and Mr. Cram” from any purported wrongdoing relating to the use of firearms and live ammunition at the Sarasota Sailing Squadron’s Labor Day Regatta. Up until reading the article, I had not known Tripwire’s last name. Cram? It seems apt for some reason. I am just not quite certain why. Turns out, word of the decision in Tallahassee had preceded Bubba and Tripwire’s return where it really counted. When the two came into The Blue Moon Bar, they were treated like Roman legions returning to Rome after a victorious foreign campaign. The Blue Moon denizens, who knew why they had gone to Tallahassee, cheered. Doobie, The Blue Moon bartenderette, granted them each a free beer, an honor most high. Me, I went outside to see if there were any crucified people lining the street outside. Gladly, I didn’t see any. After the hubbub had died down, the raised glasses lowered and the high fives stopped, I asked the question I had wanted to pose. “Bubba, what happened in Tallahassee? There were charges pending against you involving the misuse of a firearm, attacking a law enforcement officer of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and not having enough life jackets on board
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December 2013
SOUTHWINDS
for all hands when the FWC officers came on your boat. How did you evade the ramifications of all that?” “First of all, do you know what FWC stands for?” Bubba asked by way of an answer. “I know what you think it stands for,” I stated, flatly. Then Bubba addressed the assembled crowd in the bar, many of whom had never had been close to a boat. “Do you know what FWC stands for?” he asked of the small multitude—that would be a minitude. The answer came back as Bubba expected, “Noooo!” Doobie must have been in the ladies room, because Bubba shouted, “F—-ing Water Cops!” That elicited a rousing shout of approval and another round of high fives. My question, however, remained unanswered. I, the ever-dogged journalist, asked it again. “Bubba what happened in Tallahassee?” “I got the hearing I asked for,” replied Whartz. “Tripwire and I showed up at the right place at the appointed time. The hearing was held in the Farris Bryant Building on S. Meridan in Tallahassee. The FWC hearing officer, Capt. White, let the two officers who boarded us, Brown and Green, give their side of the story first. Both officers testified that the boarding was a routine safety inspection, that I had assaulted Officer Green and that they discussed a lack of adequate life preservers and some purported gunfire at the Labor Day Regatta with me. I maintained my composure while hearing these charges, but their testimony got under Tripwire’s skin. He couldn’t contain himself. “Tripwire shot out of his chair like he was on the warhead of an ICBM and loudly called the FWC officers a couple of REMFs and said that if they ever went into the jungle with him only one person would come out alive. “The hearing officer asked my agitated friend if either he or I had used live ammunition at the regatta to start the Laser class. Tripwire said, ‘No f—-ing way, man. My illegitimate son was racing in that class, and I’d frag everyone in this room, except Bubba, before I’d let any harm come to him.’” “I didn’t know Tripwire had a son who was a sailor,” I gasped. “Me neither,” agreed Bubba. “He sometimes operates on a need-to-know basis. It was news to me, too.” “What else happened?’ “We went ‘round and ‘round on the regatta gunfire thing. No one could prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that we had live ammo on the committee boat. The FWC just had complaints from some parents who weren’t at the regatta— they were playing golf—so it was a once-removed ‘he said/she said’ deal. We said the use of live ammo didn’t occur; Brown and Green could not offer proof that it did. The issue was dropped,” Bubba explained. I asked the live-aboard, live-alone sailor what came next. “It was my alleged assault on Officer Green,” answered Bubba “Here I was, trying to help this very scared broad get rid of the cockroaches that had landed on her chest, the ones www.southwindsmagazine.com