Bumming around town with Bill Bumerton

Bumerton is a retired Navy fighter pilot who had been missing in action for several years while he traversed the globe looking for greener grass. He discovered the grass is only greener here (it’s blue in Kentucky), so he returned to again take charge of his 1954 green Hudson Hornet that had been in storage, refilled his pipe, and is continuing his smokin’ ways. Here is what he recently told us at the Sports Paper.

 

You got a little out of touch this high school football season, didn’t you Big Dawg. You usually are right on top of things, but because you were still making a transition to the Internet with this rag, you fell behind a little bit. Which is the long way to say you were surprised to see a kid named Tyler Lee lead the North Kitsap Vikings with 115 tackles this season. He had 72 solo tackles and 43 assists. Man, Big Dawg, you missed out big time on this kid. You better do a follow up story on him. Lee also had 13 tackles for losses, eight pressures on the quarterback, five sacks, one interception and three fumbles caused. Not bad. Not bad. You did a story on Kyle North, the excellent running back for NK, and you figured he would cross the century mark in rushing marks. He just missed. He ran for 948 with nine touchdowns. Lee, by the way, had 205 yards rushing and an 11.4-yard per carry average with one TD. North also caught 11 passes, and Lee 10. Both scored three receiving TDS.  The Vikings, by the way Big Dawg, had a seven-game winning streak while roaring to the Olympic League championship. They finished 7-3, losing a district playoff game to Orting, 37-14. All the statistics come courtesy of Virg Taylor, the longtime NK baseball coach now retired who helps out with the football program, as well as the baseball program.  The local high school football season was not a good one, though. The local high school basketball season begins on Monday with official practices and I’m hoping Big Dawg that West Sound schools will be better than our teams were in football. This might have been one of the worse high school football seasons in my memory. Kingston has survived to play another post-season game, but the rest, including NK, were bopped in the first week of post-season. I tell you what Big Dawg, we may have not done well on the gridiron, but we did see some good football players. The one I really like is Henry English, who has been incredible on both sides of the ball for Kingston. Lee obviously is a good one, although I did not see him play. I liked South Kitsap’s Logan Knowles as a receiver and defensive back. Logan, who is the son of Gold Mountain Golf Complex’s head golf pro, Mark Knowles, has great hands and wonderful defensive instincts. … Lisa Barfield won her third Kitsap Scratch Bowlers Association title when she won the Longhouse Marker & Deli Open at Laurel Lanes in Port Angeles. Barfield was the top qualifier and beat Dean Richards in the title match, 179-166. Mark Franklin won the Lakeside Industries 205-and-under Division by stopping Rick Thorene in the TV Finale, 187-154. .. You were just bumming around Facebook and came across a slew of former Seattle P-I writers who are still close, some of whom still write, especially golf. It was a wonderful jog in memory back to a time when the writers who covered major sports beats in Seattle were all fairly close and real good guys. This was before writers were allowed to moonlight with radio and TV, and way before the explosion of social media. Now print writers host sports talk radio shows, are on Facebook, Twitter, and have blogs. It’s a different world. The trip back in time on Facebook brought back to life the days when Don James was the main man in town, and now he is gone, as is Marv Harshman, Frosty Westering and, just last week, Elton Goodwin. All great coaches, all good men, all wiped out in less than a year. But it’s good to see that some old familiar writers are still going strong. It allows you to still have a grip on reality knowing that others like you are still around. … I agree with former president Bill Clinton, Big Dawg, that the president sitting in the White House now needs to admit mistakes in the health care law and go back and make them right. There is no wrong in making things right. Now we’ll see if he will overcome his political instincts and do it. … As for all those wobbly and weird far right Republicans who would like to destroy our government and take us back to the pre-historical days, I hope they all get thrown out of office and wind up needing the foot stamps they have already slashed funding for. And while I’m on a roll Big Dawg, I’d like to see Elizabeth Warren run for president in 2016. That would be a heck of a battle between her and Hillary. I like Hillary in some respects, but she is wedded to Wall Street and Big Money and that can’t be good for us trying to survive in the vanishing middle class. The Clintons have gotten super rich in politics and seem bent on making hundreds of millions more. Warren may force Hillary to move away from Wall Street. However, I would not believe it. Money is an awful powerful drug and the more money one can obtain feeds that powerful drug. Money rules this world, in all aspects, and when you can get a lot of it you have more power than one should have, and if you use it for evil gains it is not a good scenario. I say let the Clintons have all their money, but keep them away from the White House where the greedy Wall Street will have huge influence and will run over the less powerful main street. Until then, however, run out and get me a tall latte Big Dawg.