Shot at lustrous legacy could be wiped out

If you think there’s even a small chance that you might die one day, then I urge you to pay a lot more attention to your legacy.

(Those who plan on living forever – vampires, Dick Cheney, zombies, Avista execs – can skip to the comics.)

Your legacy is how the world will think of you when you’re gone and getting the one you want is a lot tougher than you’d think.

For example, for the last eight years George Bush has been working overtime on being remembered as the worst president in American history. As of last January, despite starting wars, not finding bin Laden and speaking as if English were a fourth or fifth language, President Bush still found himself in a three-way heat with Richard Nixon and heavily boozing Ulysses S. Grant.

But thanks to the recent Wall Street wipeout and the refusal of any Republican candidates to even whisper his name during the election, it looks like Bush will leave office achieving his goal.

I’ll be honest with you. I’m a bit worried about my own legacy.

I thought all my work spreading joy, promoting my hometown and developing police relations would seal my place as Spokane’s Gandhi.

Then my lovely wife, Sherry, came home the other day with something someone had given her at work.

It was a page from a 2008 bathroom humor calendar. For each day of the year the calendar provides readers with “laugh out loud latrine-themed fun.”

The hilarity for Nov. 2 was headlined “Uncle John’s Stall of Shame.” The honoree was none other than Spokane’s Bob Apple, city councilman and owner of the Comet bar.

“Uh-oh,” I muttered to myself. “I think I know where this is headed.”

The paragraph on the calendar page attempted to retell the 2005 story about how Apple stopped stocking his Hillyard saloon restrooms with toilet paper due to TP thievery. Customers feeling the call of nature had to check out a roll from the barkeep.

I read on.

“Doug Clark, a columnist for the Spokane Spokesman-Review, bought 45 rolls of bathroom tissue, wrapped the bundle in red, white and blue ribbon, and put them on Apple’s desk at city hall,” stated the calendar text.

This is bad. All true – but bad.

See, I realize I’ve achieved a certain level of notoriety by writing 3,000-plus columns for the newspaper since 1984.

But that’s small time exposure. These calendars sell by the bazillions to points everywhere.

What I’m saying is that on Nov. 2, people all over the globe gazed at their calendar to get some potty jollies. As a result, I’ll be forever type cast as a toilet paper-delivering lunatic.

It’s not the way I want to be remembered for posterior.

Sorry. I meant posterity.

I called Bob Apple to give him the horrible news.

Apple, however, didn’t seem a bit upset about achieving fame this way.

I should’ve known. Apple’s a politician. Larry Craig notwithstanding, being connected to commodes is usually a step up.

All Apple wanted to do was to correct some of the mistakes on our calendar page. Like the fact that it claimed “the Health Department threatened to shut down the Comet if he didn’t restock his stalls.”

Not one bit true, said Apple. His beef with the health fascists was over a completely separate issue.

Apple wasn’t in the best mood. He was grouchy about a story that appeared regarding his car being hit by a red-light runner. He was ticked off that the writer used his opposition to Spokane’s red light intersection cameras as an ironic twist.

Sorry, Bob. But if that ain’t irony nothing is.

I liked Apple better when he was a toilet paper tightwad.

As for the Clark legacy, my goal now is to live long enough until the 2008 toilet calendar fades from memory.

This probably won’t help.

I gave a speech last Wednesday at a grange near the wheat town of St. John. Before it was time to talk, I went into the restroom for a quick pit stop.

A second after I walked into the john I started laughing. Hanging over the urinals was this giant homemade sign that bore a warning in large and stern block letters.

“No Deposits of Any Source in Urinals,” it read. Then, as if that wasn’t enough, the writer added the following details:

“(Chew, Butts, Gum or Puke.)”

Wow. Those Palouse grangegoers must really throw some wild parties.

I’m probably too late for next year’s bathroom humor calendar. But I’ll bet this makes me golden for 2010.