“There is a Pony in this Pile of Horseshit Somewhere”

“There’s a pony in this pile of horseshit somewhere. We’ll have a nursing … program,”

Crystal Lake investment banker Barry Glasgow observed at the end of his penetrating questions about whether college trustees knew the people they were “getting in bed with” on the 20-year baseball stadium deal.

As I was going to sleep and waking up I wondered if I headlined the story correctly:

“Flushing Out Baseball Stadium Details”

Is “Flushing” the right word the back part of my brain was asking.

Should it have been

“Fleshing Out Baseball Stadium Details?”

When, I awoke, it occurred to me that the headline should have been

“There is a Pony in this Pile of Horseshit Somewhere”

But, between “Flushing” and “Fleshing,” I think “Flushing” is the better word.

I’m pretty certain that “Fleshing” is usually the word used in the phrase “Fleshing out.” There’s even a book starting with that phrase.

But, I’m not the only one having the debate.

When I think of “fleshing out” I think of a medical book, maybe the “Grey’s Anatomy” I got my 9-year old at the First United Church Rummage Sale for 25 cents (hey, it was the paper back edition and paperbacks sold for 25 cents–and, yes, he read it) last spring. Flesh is put on the bones and muscle.

But in the case of the MCC baseball stadium, we have seen no bones, no muscle.

All we have seen is the flesh.

What will this deal look like down the road? Will “The Picture of Dorian Gray?” have any lessons for McHenry County taxpayers?

The details have been digested by the college administrators and trustees and are now inside the flesh of the public details of baseball stadium.

So, I think “Flush” is the better word.

Maybe I should have used the word “Purge.”

What the college needs and the taxpayers deserve is a purging of whatever is hidden in its digestive tract.

Then, with the right tools, we might be able to see if there is a cancerous growth inside that will severely injure the college before the 20-year debt certificates are repaid.


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