Morning Chill

I worked my neighborhood poll for Courtney Watson this morning. This basically entailed standing along a curb and holding a sign and having my feet frozen. I drank a lot of coffee.

I also got to meet a few fellow poll workers. Though there were disagreements amongst us all of our discussions were cordial until Warren Miller showed up in an RV.

I should start out by saying that Warren was fine. He offered a friendly greeting and donuts to all of the poll workers, regardless of their party hat. It was his driver that changed the tone.

As is my custom, I reached out and introduced myself to his entourage including the RV driver, Chic Chickanis. I have never met Mr. Chickanis before and I assumed he didn’t know me. I attempted to keep things light but Chic was not in a light mood. Perhaps it was my obvious support of a Dem candidate that raised his ire. Very quickly the conversation turned to recently enacted national healthcare legislation. Chic wanted to know if I supported it.

“I don’t know,” I replied. “Honestly I haven’t read the complete bill yet.”

“It’s socialism,” he informed me.

“Did you read it?” I asked.

“No, I don’t have to,” he replied, “its socialism.”

“How can you say that if you haven’t read it?” I wondered.

He began getting a bit more agitated. To his credit, Warren recognized that this discussion was escalating into ugliness and quickly attempted to diffuse the situation by interjecting himself and changing the subject. He pointed out that someone had placed a Calvin Ball sign at this polling station.

That bought out some smiles from everyone but Chic. I think he got Warrens message though and our little issue discussion was henceforth concluded.

The shame is that there was also a young man in Warren’s entourage, most likely a middle schooler. I thought about what type of message he received when he heard an adult say that you don’t need to read about an issue to form an opinion about it.