I have ridden with the horsemen, paid an undue amount of attention to the ladies, told lies unimaginable to the authorities, run guns to El Salvador and also errands upon request. I cheated on blood tests and shot doves over baited fields, dynamited fish and whiskey stills and remained unrepentant. I voted for a Democrat president one time and even that didn’t bother me until I had time to sober up.

I shocked my poor old Aunt Suzie with a five-bar Bell telephone. (My cousin Jane helped me wire it to the outhouse seat. If you think the results of a phone on a fish is spectacular you gotta try one on an aunt in an outhouse.)

I misrepresented cars and real estate as to their value for personal gain. I wrote on the walls of public facilities and signed the preacher’s son’s name so he could appreciate literary achievement. I have flown motorcycles and group looped airplanes, loved and lost three wives, four dogs, two horses, a pocketknife and a partridge under a pear tree.

I posted notice in this newspaper that I was officially not running for sheriff and I didn’t. I’m proud of these misdeeds, and wouldn’t deny it to a bootlegger on Sunday.

I have mangled the truth and slandered everybody from the Easter Bunny to the Tooth Fairy. I stole my little sister’s homework and poured bacon grease on it so the dog would eat it. I ripped Aunt Lindy’s goose down pillow into shreds and feathers and planted the evidence on the dog that ate the homework.

I reiterate, I am not repentant for any of these sins, although the ones I got caught at made me sore and I sat funny for a few days afterward.

Now in light of all these confessed miscreant activities, I ask you, why didn’t the Sardis Board of Aldermen appoint me as their chief of police?

I was qualified at subterfuge, perjury, larceny and fraud. I was a Panola Countian, registered to vote and didn’t give a damn whether I got appointed or not. In view of the outcome of their last appointment, it would appear that the appointers need to file their sights down a little finer.

Hiring, firing, appointing, denying and this chief fiasco reaffirms the first rule of politics: “Why worry about getting it right, just get it done and collect, retire and let the next crew fit it.”

Just in case the board decides to reconsider my prior submission for the job, I resign beforehand. I have other fish to catch this time of year and there ain’t nothing fishy about them.

Tired and retired

Ricky Harpole

(Editor’s note: Ricky Harpole will play Saturday night, March 5, at the Magnolia Music Festival in Philadelphia. He takes the stage at 7 p.m.)