The great Globetrotters

PALMER — Suiting up before his performance Saturday, Harlem Globetrotter Meadowlark Lemon said the crowd should expect to have a good time.

“A lot of joy and a lot of fun,” he said. “That’s what we can expect is to just have a lot of fun.”

Lemon was on hand, as he has been most years, as part of the Harlem Globetrotter All-Stars, which competed against a squad of mostly firefighters to benefit the Palmer Volunteer Fire Association. Asked how many times he’s been to Alaska he chuckled and threw out a wild guess of 50.

Lt. David Menesis with the Palmer Fire Department has played in every game the Globetrotters have played here. He said he’s been the organizers’ point man in Palmer from the start.

“It’s good fun. It’s good fun for us and good fun for the community,” he said.

This year the event was also a part of the yearly Colony Christmas celebration. Usually, Menesis said, the event pulls in around $2,000 for the association. The organizers subtract their expenses from the money made both at the door and at the merchandise table and give Palmer the balance. The association is guaranteed at least $1,500.

Asked what the crowd should expect from him, Palmer Fire Chief John McNutt said, “for me to survive.” McNutt is a relatively new addition to the fire department and this is his first year playing for the Palmer side.

“I haven’t played basketball in 11 years,” McNutt said as the Palmer squad warmed up. He said he’s never really played competitively; only for fun.

Putting the team together is a relatively simple affair, McNutt said. It’s just a matter of firing off an e-mail. A lot of the firefighters have signed up even before they’re asked.

“They know it’s coming ahead of time because they’ve done this many years in a row,” he said.

Speaking at halftime; Sgt. Kelly Turney with the Palmer Police Department said he saw the e-mail from the fire department and immediately signed up. In the game’s first quarter, it was a lay-up from Turney that first put Palmer on the board.

“I can cross it off my bucket list — played with the Harlem Globetrotters, scored two points,” Turney said. “I can remember going to this back when I was in high school.”

He said the event was a blast but that he also gets a kick out of having an opportunity to help out the fire department.

“Cops and firefighters, we’re there on all those calls together 95 percent of the time,” Turney said.

He joked before the game started that even with a Palmer loss a foregone conclusion, he’d told his squad to follow through with their shots and at least make it look good.

The show wasn’t so much about basketball as it was about Lemon and his crew entertaining the crowd. Lemon gave color commentary from the court and took every opportunity — such as being called for traveling for taking a few steps around an opposing player to get a better view — as an opportunity for slapstick.

“But she was in my way!” he told the ref.

In the locker room, Lemon said that when he’s not on the court he spends some of his time doing inspirational speaking and some of it writing. He said he hopes to impart a message promoting teamwork and good health.

“I think I chose the best for my life, to do what I want and to do it well,” he said.