If so, Crimmins wasn’t commenting on the record. In July 1978, he and Sybil took a cruise to the Bahamas. Snapshots of her on deck, doing justice to a flowered bikini, a tall, iced drink in one hand. The text said she’d “entertained the other guests with lilting renditions of show tunes and Broadway classics.”
Nothing of interest till January 5, 1980, when I came across an account of “The Farm
League New Year’s Ball and Fund-raiser” at the Silver Saddle Lodge in Fresno.
Mostly pictures of people I didn’t recognize. Till the bottom of page four.
Scott Ardullo dancing, but not with his wife.
In his arms was Sybil Crimmins, white-blond hair long and flowing over bare tan shoulders. Her gown was black and strapless; her breasts were barely tucked into its skimpy bodice as they pressed against Scott’s starched white chest. Her fingers were laced with his and her big diamond ring sparkled between his digits. He looked down at her, she gazed up at him. Something different in his eyes-at odds with the solid-young-businessman image-too much heat and light, a hint of stupidity.
Dopey surrender.
Maybe it was too many drinks, or the novelty of holding someone who wasn’t your wife, feeling her warm breath against your face. Or maybe a big party had offered the two of them the chance to flaunt something they’d been savoring in dark, musky rooms.
It could be why Jacob Haas had tightened up when talking about Sybil Crimmins.
Scott, a boy he’d long admired, straying with a platinum-haired strumpet from L.A.?
As I stared at the picture, it seemed to give off waves of heat. Worth well more than a thousand words. I was surprised the Intelligencer had published it.
I found an editorial three weeks later that might’ve explained that:
After much soul-searching, as well as witnessing, firsthand, the triumphs and the travails of those noble enough-and some would say sufficiently quixotically
inclined-to brave the elements of Nature as well as the much more malignant Forces of Big Government, this newspaper must weigh in on the side of rationality and self-preservation.
It s all fine and well for those born with silver spoons in their mouths to pronounce righteously about abstract ideals such as the Sanctity of the Family Farm.
But to the bulk of the populace, those hardy but bowed men entrusted with the day-to-day, backbreaking labor that keeps the ground fertile, the branches laden, and the trucks loaded with Bounty, the story is quite another one.
Joe Average in Treadway-and, we ‘d venture to wager, any agricultural community-toils day after day for fixed wages, with no promise of security or profit, or long-term investment. In most cases, his meager plot of backyard and his domicile are all he owns, and sometimes even that is tethered to some Financial
Institution. Joe Average would love to plan for the Future, but he’s usually too overwhelmed by the Present. So when Good Fortune smiles in the form of rising land values, offering said Mr. Average the chance of Real Gain, he cannot be condemned for seizing the opportunity to afford his family the same safety and comfort that the more fortunate regard as their birthright.
Sometimes good sense and the rights of individuals must prevail.
At our last Kiwanis luncheon, Mr. Carson Crimmins said it best: “Progress is like a jet plane. Fly with it or stand on the runway and you risk getting blown away.”
Those of more fortunate lineage but less vision would do well to realize this.
Times change, and change they must. The history of this great country is based upon
Free Will, Private Property, and Self-reliance.
Those who resist the voice of the future may find themselves in that Godless state known as Stagnation.
Times change. Brave and smart men change along with them.
Humbly, O. Hatzler
Scott Ardullo, fallen out of editorial good graces. Still, wouldn’t the picture have embarrassed Carson Crimmins as well?
I read through subsequent issues, waiting for Scott’s written response to the editorial. Nothing. Either he hadn’t bothered, or the Intelligencer had refused to print his letter.
Five weeks later, Orton and Wanda Hatzler’s names were gone from the paper’s masthead. In their place, in ornate, curlicued typescript: