On to Politics

Today’s question (courtesy of The Cafe of the Cosmic Blog) is: How would you describe your politics?

Liberal, I guess. I think my government should spend less money on the military/industrial complex, and more on education and protecting the vulnerable persons in our society.

I’ve run for (and won) public office three times in my life. The fourth time around I didn’t run, but I won anyway. All four times is was for position on the Board of Directors of the local public school. Gotta love small town politics, though... *flashback*

“The Weston family has farmed land along the Saco River Valley here in Fryeburg for more than 200 years. The current Mr. Weston, in addition to carrying on the farming tradition, is also a Selectman for the Town of Fryeburg.

I had never heard the term 'Selectman' until I moved to New England 13 years ago. In the traditional style small town government structure, a Selectman is an administrative official of a town, an elected position which affords one local prestige, a modicum of power, and a very little compensation. Each town has 3 or 4 Selectmen (or women, as the case may be). But I digress.

On Saturday morning I received a phone call from Mrs. Weston (Laurie). Having gotten wind of the fact that I had not signed up for re-election to the local School Board, she asked me if I was aware that my term was almost up. Laurie, herself, has been a member of the school board, faithfully running for re-election every 3 years, since God was in Kindergarten.

"Oh...um...I'm not running this time." was my reply to her query. "You see my job..." I started.
"No need to explain to me." she said, "But I don't know who we're going to get to run..." she added, sounding a bit distressed. "Well, we'll just have to get the word out." she ended confidently.

I guess she did. A short time later, when my husband returned from running a few errands in town, he said, "Kit asked me why you weren't running for school board this year." I knew he meant Kit Trumbull, of Trumbull's Hardware.

"So what did you tell him?" I asked dubiously, knowing that anything he said in the hardware store would be magnified exponentially in a short time.

"That your new hours at work make it difficult to attend meetings, and with Amber going to high school next year you will no longer have a vested interest in the younger grades." (the high school is a privately owned and operated academy, over which the School Board has very little control).

"OK." I said, satisfied. With word out, someone will no doubt be recruited in time for the March Town elections... “ But no one did. I was elected by ‘write-in.’
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