We are in November. This is an exciting month for the Gator Clan. First, we made it and that's pretty significant. There are a couple of good holidays in the month. Next week we honor all the men and women who have served, and especially those who have died, in the armed services of our country. The second is the the fourth Thursday, the 24th this year, when families get together for Thanksgiving.
It's the month we begin our annual Christmas Village, a collection of pieces representing England's Victorian Age and the Charles Dickens' era. It takes us about two weeks to assemble the year's depiction. The village construction will begin next week and we hope to light it on Thanksgiving Night, or at least by the weekend following.
This is the month that marks 50 wonderful years that Gator Wife and I have been married.
And now, at last, November is underway.
As I said we probably would in my last post, GW and I visited our Town Hall Tuesday and filled in the little bubbles that next Tuesday will be joined with other people's bubbling to determine how we will be governed for the next year.
The task here in Scarborough at least was very simple as there were only one contested full term and one contested complete-a-term Town Council seats. Four people were running for three full terms on the Town Council. I had carefully read about them earlier. A weekly newspaper had asked each the same specific quesions and using their responses I eliminated one from my list. Two folk were vying for the term to complete a fourth council seat. Both sounded O.K. in their writeups and both were familiar names in town politics, so I just said, "That one!"
Only two candidates were running for the two school board seats.
My choice for County Commissioner would be obvious to anyone who reads these posts. One of the candidates is an officer in the Town Committee that represents me. Besides she and I agree on a bond question to fund a remodeled Cumberland County Civic Center. (Yea, I know; it was deliberate.)
I suspect you already know how I voted on the four state questions from stuff I've written in the last few weeks. If you have read my stuff from previous years, you probably already know how I voted on the bond questions, too.
I'll probably remind you to vote yourselves on my weekend and Monday posts. I am very proud that I have voted in just about every election since I turned 21 back in the 1950s. I'd like to say I've "never" missed one, but somehow that word "never" always comes back to haunt its sayer. I honestly believe it is a prime duty of all citizens to exercise their right of selection in the voting booth.
Now if I lived in Portland, I might just be complaining. The more I read and hear about that new candidate rating system they're using to select a new mayor, the more I think it's going to leave a bad taste in Portland residents' mouths. I heard some residents in news stories last night saying they were going to simply "bullet" the ballot, i.e., vote for just the one they wanted, and others say they were only rating two to five candidates. I would think that might leave the system really suspect in its final results. We'll have a much clearer picture on its success or acceptance next week and I hope, for Portlanders' sake, I'm dead wrong.
I do appreciate the desire for the winning candidate to have at least 51% of the vote, but I think I'd prefer a runoff to get there rather than the rating system.
GW and I had a needed to take a short trip on the Maine Turnpike Tuesday. The construction work on it is brutal to traffic. We were headed north bound past Exit 48. The south bound lane was simply a parking lot. Both lanes were backed up from just north of Exit 48 all the way past the Falmouth Exit to Route 100. A stream of cars was approaching the backed up traffic so I don't know how far north it eventually went. Motorists have been warned of construction delays, but I wouldn't have expected anything like I saw Tuesday.
We completed our business in Lewiston and decided to take Route 100 back to Portland. I'd warn anyone planning to head south, probably either direction at different times of the day, to heed those traffic delay warnings. The Turnpike people aren't kidding.
Gator
No comments:
Post a Comment