Saturday, September 07, 2019

Door knocks and shoe leather.

I was sitting in the office, still in my PJ's at a little after ten on this Saturday morning, while Bobbi was whipping herself up some breakfast in the kitchen, also in sleepwear and bathrobe, when there came a knocking at the front door.

Grumble, grumble...

"I'll handle it!", I called out.

I shuffled to the front door and stood tiptoe to peek through the small fan light window high in the door. There was a vaguely familiar-looking middle-age white dude on the porch wearing some kind of logo'ed polo...

Normally, being still in my pajamas, this would involve that awkward one-hand-behind-my-back conversation through a cracked door. Thanks to the developments from yesterday's post, though, I had both hands free.

I cracked the door just enough to admit my head so I could talk, and one foot so Huck couldn't insert himself annoyingly into the space between the front door and the security door.

The knocker was our state senator, out grinding the shoe leather and dropping off surveys.

Similarly, I recollect our state rep out doing the same thing once. That time, it turned into a thirty minute conversation, since when he strolled up, I'd been sitting on my front porch talking to The Democrat Next Door and she, being fairly involved in local politics, knew our rep rather well.

It's the little incidents like this that remind me that the country is run by the people who show up.

You wanna affect things? You need to show up*.

"Bitching on the internet", notably, does not qualify as showing up.


*And I don't just mean "vote", because that's the lowest-effort tier, but actually get involved. Volunteering as a poll worker would be an easy start, for instance, and would let you meet the people who actually are showing up at your local level.
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