Blackmail capped Trump hat auction

In the end, the joke was on me.

But actually there were several jokes involved.

Joke No. 1 — Returning from a trip to Russia this fall, retired Portland banker Barry Hudson brought a gag gift to a Rotary Club meeting. It was presented to me with much fanfare and kidding. 

The gift was a baseball-style cap with one word embroidered across the front: Trump. 

Now, given the investigation into campaign collusion with the Russians, the idea of a Trump hat from that country seemed especially silly. 

And upon inspection, the hat wasn’t made in Russia. It was made in China.

My service club friends, knowing of my disaffection for the current occupant of the White House, got a good laugh out of the presentation and urged me to put it on. Those doing most of the urging already had their cellphones out to snap a picture of the moment.

That led to:

Joke No. 2 — After making it clear that the Jack-trying-on-the-hat moment wasn’t going to happen that day, I announced that I’d donate the Trump hat to the Arts Place holiday benefit auction. 

And, I told them, if the bids reached a certain threshold, I’d put the hat on and pose for a photo. One good laugh turned into another, and the benefit auction had another donation.

But as the date of the auction neared, I was beginning to have second thoughts. I’d originally said that there would be a reserve price of $1,000, but a few folks seemed too eager to raise that amount, so I bumped it up to $2,000.

Even then, as a strong supporter of Arts Place and all its good works, I wasn’t enthusiastic about what lay before me.

I wondered: What sort of expression should I have on my face when the picture is snapped? 

Should I smile when I think there’s precious little to smile about? Should I thumb my nose at the camera? Should I put the hat on backwards like a 20-something so that the Trump name was invisible? I wasn’t sure about any of this.

But that brought us to the night of the benefit auction and led to:

Joke No. 3 — The hat was kind of an auction dud. 

While there had been a couple of bidders who were going to come up with the money to assure my humiliation, one of them played hooky and didn’t attend. Instead of bringing a bid of $2,000, it sold for something like $175.

 I was both relieved and disappointed. Relieved that the photo nonsense wasn’t going to happen, disappointed that Arts Place wouldn’t receive the extra money.

So I wandered out to the gallery to get some more refreshments, and that led to:

Joke No. 4 — After I sat down and tried to re-focus on what Gary Loy was trying to get people to bid on, I was completely unaware of what was happening behind me.

The Trump hat had been purchased by a couple of our good friends, Joe and Carol Trimmer of Muncie. Joe’s a retired Ball State University professor in the English department. Carol worked back in the day as a staffer for Rep. Phil Sharp and has been a dedicated board member both at Arts Place and John Jay Center for Learning. 

They’d bought the hat as a gag gift and saw an opportunity for mischief.

Before I knew it, Joe had come up behind me and placed the Trump hat gently on my head while Carol took a picture of me grinning like an idiot.

I had been had. But after an intermission in the auction, things led to:

Joke No. 5 — Carol had Gary Loy call me up to the front and offered to sell me the rights to the Jack-in-a-Trump-hat photo on her phone in exchange for a suitable donation to Arts Place. 

In other words, I was dealing with extortion or blackmail. 

The fact that Jay County prosecutor Wes Schemenaur was in the audience and getting a good laugh out of it did not make it any easier.

What’s it going to cost me? I asked.

$300, said Carol.

Yikes, I thought. How about $200?

We settled on $250, and she swore that she’d deleted the picture from her cellphone.

There is, however, a little matter of whether it made its way to The Cloud.

Ultimately, I suspect, the joke is on me.