October 6, 2008

• Of Politics and Worms

  What was I doing? I remember–I was sitting in a folding lawn chair (although it was not folding at the time) watching HarmonyFest, which is an event Labor Day Weekend when Three Rivers closes off the downtown, sets up a bandshell at one end and hires a series of bands, choruses, and musical groups to entertain whoever might show up with a lawn chair. We plant ourselves in the middle of the cordoned off street and talk and eat elephant ears (vendors are available to supply our every need) and–with any luck–listen to the music provided. The event is free. It’s great people-watching. So that was what I was doing when a woman, obviously working the crowd, asked me if I had ever heard of someone. I had not. The woman I had never heard of was running for state rep in my district, and I was handed some literature about her, a wooden clothespin (she’s for clean energy) and I was introduced to her.

  I let Nancy handle these conversations. I am capable of charming light conversation, but Nancy is so much more likely to leap into discussion with people running for things or campaigning for things, I often think to myself, you go, girl…  At some point she handed me a clipboard and told me to write down my name, address and telephone number. I really should pay more attention to these situations.

  It would appear I volunteered. To work on her campaign. To call people and ask them to vote for her. Lots of people. I have a list with about 20 people on a sheet (I haven’t actually counted them) and somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 sheets. Give or take. My job, as a volunteer coordinator, is to find other people to call these people. Apparently most people don’t just write their names, addresses and phone numbers on a clipboard because their partner handed it to them and said, “Here.” I called 150 people last week and got two volunteers–the young man who came into the office and said, “I’ll work, give me something to do, I’ll do it,” and a retired schoolteacher who wants my yard sign.

   You’ll have to scroll up to see this, but MY yard sign was a $5 campaign contribution and it’s red, white and blue for Obama. The signs to the left–and there sure looks like there are a lot of them, doesn’t it? It looked that way when I hung their little plastic sleeve selves over those metal wire frames–are $3…or they were when we still had any–and I think they are not as pretty. It doesn’t matter now because they’re all gone anyway and we don’t know if we will ever get any more. But we did get more bumper stickers, which we had none of last week. How do I know such fascinating trivia about the local supply of Obama signs?  Because I also volunteer to keep the Democratic HQ for St. Joe County open 4 hours a week.

  People steal political yard signs. We didn’t know this. We put up our sign, which I think Nancy bought at the same HarmonyFest, and it’s been there–well, THEY have been there, one for Obama and one for Carol Higgins, the woman I didn’t know until I found myself campaigning for her–ever since. No one has ever touched them. But apparently sign poaching is a serious sport, here in Three Rivers, and the school teacher had one of the ‘good’ ones and someone poached it. I had no idea having a sign in my yard was so complex. Most people go out in the evening and bring theirs in for the night. 

  So N and I jumped out of bed saturday morning and rushed into the Democratic HQ (the Republicans are across the street) and gathered our two and half volunteers, issued them lists, gave them instructions and a crib sheet, and sent them on our way, and I had…some minor, minor little question to ask the keeper of the building, so we hung around as the Obama canvassers gathered, chattered and dispersed…and it became clear, eventually, that there was no keeper of the building. We had 15 canvassers walking around town, each with a packet of information they were to return…to a building someone must have opened–but then, so MANY people can… So we split the day with an Obama canvasser who didn’t have to leave right away, and I sat around the office all afternoon, keeping it open. Keeping the office open is a job requiring virtually no skills beyond knowing where the change box is, and being able to remember who was who and where they were going when they left and–most importantly–whether or not they were coming back.

  I’m sure there is some organization to this whole process, but lack the vision to see it and–more importantly–I lack the desire to provide it (for which the entire democratic contingent of St. Joseph County should release a collective sigh of relief.) Oh, thank God, she’s not taking over…

  Sunday we were going to winterize the house. We caved saturday when it was 54 degrees inside and out and turned on the heat. I was blowing frost rings in the bathroom when I heard the familiar clang of the furnace kicking on. (That’s a lie, actually–I can never tell when the furnace is on, which causes N. to scowl and cock her head sideways at me like a cocker spaniel looking at a crazed squirrel.)

  However, while we were making our weatherization plans our friend Daryla showed up.

   Two years ago Daryla tore the roof off her house and hired men to come replace it. (It leaked.) The new roof was shaped differently from the old one (it was peaked, rather than flat, thus allowing rain to slide down the side rather than pooling and soaking through the ceiling, onto the carpetting below.) The kitchen and dining room suffered as a result of this, so she decided to remodel. Her first weapon of choice was a crowbar. For a long time we rarely saw Daryla and when we did she was covered with dry wall mud.

   Then for about six months she would appear at our kitchen table with 300 color chips and ask help deciding what color to paint her new kitchen. She commented that her sister had thrown all of the paint chips in a bag and walked out on a conversation like that, but we assumed Peggy was just being testy. About the third time the paint chips were selected, the colors were decided upon, the decision was made, and then Daryla reappeared with the 300 paint chips and asked for help picking out the colors for her new kitchen I called Peggy and apologized for any unkind thoughts I might have had about her. N lasted longer than I did, but one day I asked her if a certain shirt went with a certain pair of slacks and she began raving incoherently about paint chips and the insanity of making the same decision over and over again and I had to dress myself.

   N also went through the same process picking out kitchen cupboards which–being a much more expensive proposition than painting–was held considerably more often, including field trips to every cupboard producing company in the tristate area…

   Anyway. Daryla ordered her cupboards two weeks ago. (Yes: she has appeared, like a homeless child, in our kitchen every time she’s needed a cook space for a few weeks short of two years.)

  Next she needed a sink.

  Nancy said, “My sister works for a plumbing company–call her.” And she picked up her cell phone, dialed her sister’s number, and handed the phone to Daryla. (I believe her sister Mary could legally have her shunned for this kind of betrayal.)

  Mary is not a woman who tolerates fools gladly. Nor is she indecisive. She listened politely to Daryla’s requirements, narrowed the choices down to two sinks, and used price as the variable factor. Apparently Mary has an intuitive understanding of Daryla that N and I do not because this deal was sealed in something short of four phone calls, the price was calculated and the sink was loaded into the back of Mary’s truck.

  The problem sunday was that Mary’s truck lives in Baroda and Daryla didn’t know how to get there. (Daryla was born and raised in Oklahoma. She returns there for four days every other year. Otherwise, Daryla knows St. Joseph County like the back of her hand, but she is incapable of crossing the county line by herself. She appears to believe that there is a big black cloud hanging just beyond the horizon and if she ever leaves her house for more than four hours or she goes more than 20 miles away from it the cloud will rise, settle directly over her house, and she will never be able to find it again. This is a real fear. I do not understand it, but then…I don’t have to. I just know it exists. Baroda is beyond the county line of extinction, draped dangerously in the enveloping mists of Not in Kansas Any More.)

  I’ve been to Baroda several times. I was alone when I went there once. I could get her there. I couldn’t begin to tell her how to get there. Nancy has lived in this area her entire life, so she jumps into the car and drives down dirt roads, pointing at houses and saying, “So-and-so lives there…” and telling charming stories about So-and-so and her niece, who is married to thus-and-such and has three kids in Valenia… So all three of us jumped into the car and rode to Baroda to retrieve the kitchen sink.

   We stopped at a cider mill for The Best Apple Cinnamon Donuts (we bought 3 dozen.)

  Lake Michigan was within the next twenty miles, so we went to Silver Beach in St. Joe…  

  We went out to eat at Zeke’s in Dowagiac (Dew-WA-jack) because we’d eaten there before and enjoyed it. We just had a wonderful time taking a road trip. We used to take road trips all of the time, but the price of gas has increased significantly since then and our disposable cash has dwindled and there have been more demands made on our time…  It was just good to get together and wander.

  We got to Mary’s and picked up the sink.

  We are hopeful now that within the next five years Daryla will install her sink and create an actual working kitchen in her own home, and then I can send her plants home with her (they have been dying in my care for two years) and her Christmas presents for the past 5 years and… but I digress. 

  My final photograph is of a catalpa tree. True plant people would look at the leaves or the overall shape of the tree, but I identify catalpa trees by the dramatic flair of their branches. Catalpa trees mean one thing to me: catalpa worms, which are not worms but caterpillars–pre-moths/butterflies.My Uncle Steve introduced me to the catalpa tree years ago, when I was just a child, because he picked the worms for fish bait.

  This is Mary’s tree. She says she gets “one or two token worms a year.”

  And with that, I will leave you. One or two token worms of thought, and I’m gone.

  You know, of course, that faucets are next.

  • 10:30 am
  • 4 Comments