The Verdict -- Robert Gardner

I noticed a headline in the Pilot on Wednesday, “Solution found for

cheerleader controversy.”

And with that, I breathed a big sigh of relief for some nameless judge

who might have been faced with trying to solve the matter were it to

reach the court. I know. I have the scars -- plus a noticeable tremor of

the hands -- to remind me.

There is an old expression that there is no anger comparable to that

of a woman scorned. The heck there isn’t.

Real, white, hot anger is to be found in the mother of a cheerleader

who has lost her place on the squad.

I don’t remember just how or why my cheerleader controversy found

itself in the judicial system, but it did, and old unlucky Bob Gardner

drew it.

Now in some 63 years as a judge, I must have tried some sticky cases

-- a few death penalties, lots of rapes, kidnappings, murders -- all run

of the mill stuff compared to that cheerleader controversy.

Oh, it wasn’t the cheerleaders themselves. They seemed to be normal

girls. But their mothers. Wow. Double wow.

I read recently that cobra stings were a major cause of death in

India. As of that moment, India was no longer in my travel folder, but

cobra stings are a slight cold in the head compared to the venom

engendered by the mothers in my case.

I don’t know what it was, but there was something about the situation

that changes normal, rational females into screaming, frothing viragoes.

I’m hopeful our current situation never got so dire, but to the person

or persons involved in the final selection, I say good luck and, if I

were you, I would promptly move to Antarctica, which may be awfully cold

but is, so far as I know, without mothers of prospective cheerleaders.

* ROBERT GARDNER is a Corona del Mar resident and a former judge. His

column runs Tuesdays.