Joe Dadey, Bob Seidenstein and Jack Drury of the Brothers of the Bush hot-tub their way through the village during Saturday’s Winter Carnival Gala Parade. (Enterprise photo — Lou Reuter)

I rapped my gavel three times, and my two colleagues fell silent.

“This Executive Committee meeting of the Brothers of the Bush is now in session,” I intoned gravely.

Joe Dadey and Jack Drury gave me their undivided attention.

Actually, I just embellished a bit.

First, I didn’t have a gavel, nor did I intone anything — gravely or otherwise.

Second, not only do The Brothers not have an executive committee, we don’t have any committees.

And finally, Joe and Jack didn’t give me their undivided attention. In fact, they didn’t give me any attention at all.

Joe was glued to his cellphone, no doubt cruising all the latest hot prospects on his favorite dating site – unclaimedtreasures.com.

Meanwhile, Jack was using his thumbnail to dig out a green glob of something between his front teeth that I hoped was left over from lunch rather than an integral part of his dental-scape, if you get my drift.

“All right,” I said, “we’ve got to make a decision.”

“About what?” said Joe, still not looking up from his phone.

“About what sub-theme we’re gonna have for Winter Carnival parade,” I said.

“SUB-theme?” said Jack. “I didn’t know we even had a theme.”

“Well, we do,” I said. “We decided on Northern Overexposure.”

“How’d we decide that?” said Jack.

“Same way we decide on lots of things,” I said. “The Royal We. In other words, I decided.”

“I don’t think that’s fair,” said Joe, managing to tear himself away from a future Mrs. J Dadey.

“Take it up with your life coach,” I said. “We’re coming up with a sub-theme. Now.”

I glared at him till he averted my gaze.

“We’ve got two choices,” I said. It’s either ‘Three Studs in a Tub,’ or ‘Three Duds in a Tub.’ Any opinions?”

“Well,” said Jack, “duds is more self-deprecating. Seems modest. But studs is funnier, I think.”

“Why’s that?” said Joe.

“Because of the irony,” said Jack.

“What irony?’ said Joe, with no trace of irony.

“Just take his word for it,” I said. “So what’s it gonna be?’

“Studs,” said Jack.

“OK,” I said. “Studs it is.”

“But I kinda like ‘duds,'” said Joe.

“How nice,” I said. “Too bad the voting’s over.”

The three studs (or if you prefer, duds) referred to were Joe, Jack and I. The tub was Jack’s wood-fired hot tub. Our parade float this year would be putting the former into the latter and then hauling it through town, in front of God and everyone. Which. I’m glad to say, we did.

Of course, it wasn’t quite that simple.

Any Winter Carnival parade unit is like the proverbial iceberg — what you see is maybe 10 percent of what it takes to make it happen. Like our crew, for example.

First, there’s the hot tub. It isn’t like it hopped up on the trailer, filled itself with 700 gallons of water and then put wood in the burner and set it alight. That whole process was left to Jack, including a Friday night wet run through the parade route, to make sure everything didn’t spill out on Berkeley hill, freeze and offer face-plants galore for the rest of the marchers.

Then there’s our outfits. Our top hats were handcrafted by Sarah Lawrence Longley, president, CEO and master milliner of Empire Essentials.

Our dashing shorts and matching bow ties and hatbands were made by my pal, seamstress extraordinaire and The Brother’s official costumer, Sylvia Cecunjanin.

And let’s not forget the signs.

First were the signs the bro carry, like “Grow it, don’t mow it,” “Support your local fuzz,” and the classic — “We’ll tickle your fancy.” Then there were the big ones on either side of the hot tub — “Hot, Wet and Wild.”

The problem with signs is people other than artists or calligraphers rarely notice a good sign as such. But everyone notices a crappy one. Ours were beautifully done by the stalwart Br. Bruce Young.

On the truck’s grill was this year’s Br. Russ Defonce masterpiece — a huge beard, mustache, and lips, replete with with a big pink tongue sticking out.

Each year, we hand out our fake bills — about 1,500 of them. The masters are hand-drawn by Mike Cochran and are different each year. Mike caught the flu the week before Carnival and couldn’t get them done till the day before the parade. They arrived at Compass Printing at 3:45 where Judi Macintosh got them all printed, cut and stacked by 5:00, in her typical fashion — efficiently, and laughing all the way.

More helpers? Sure.

Tommy Hyde lets us use his office building to wait in before the parade, sparing our old bones an al fresco freezing. Brother Ron Burdick, the Pharaoh of Fasteners, is always at hand, affixing this and securing that with his magic stash of zip ties, baling twine, duct tape, staples, etc.

This year we needed a tray for Nate Casaregola, our gentleman’s gentleman, to carry our bubbly (which, by the way, was sparkling cider). The Downhill Grill graciously rose to the occasion.

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Takin’ the trophy … and the cake

And here’s the thing; Not only did we get everything organized and running and had a hoot doing it, but we took first place in our division. As much as this was a delight, it also caused a problem: What to do with our trophy?

I had no doubt where it was going — to the youngest member of the Brotherhood — who isn’t even a Brother. She’s Sister Erin Fina, who’s 12 years old and insisted her father drive her from their Vermont home for her second Carnival parade with us. Such devotion must be rewarded.

But there was one big obstacle — Jack Drury.

Taking first place touched Jack’s primal being, stimulated his atavistic core, made the Ur-macho in him spring to life. He was no longer the reasonable, pleasant fellow-about-town we know and love. Uh-uh, he was now Basic Man. He was the troglodyte who, after slaying the saber-tooth tiger with his bare hands, has to wear its skin as a sign of victory. And our Carnival trophy was the 21st century equivalent of the tiger skin.

What to do?

I did the only thing I could — used my powers of silver-tongue deviltry to work a deal with him. The trophy would go to Erin, but we’d first take pictures of Jack holding it in his meat hooks.

As I expected, at first he resisted. Eventually, as I also expected, he gave in.

After his photo op in Hamlets to Huts on Monday morning, I was walking to my car when Mark Kurtz stopped me.

“You all right?” he said.

“Yeah, sure,” I said. “Why’d you ask?”

“I dunno,” he said. “But you were shaking your head and looking lost in thought.”

I then explained to him the whole shtuss with Br’er Jack and the trophy.

Mark didn’t say anything, but just kept nodding.

Finally, I said, “I mean, really, who else would care about a trophy but a 12-year-old kid or Jack Drury?”

Mark gave me that odd puckish smile of his, his wheels obviously turning.

Finally, he spoke.

“Which, if you think about it,” he said, “are one and the same.”