I promise I’m not writing this column out of any bias. It’s true the Sandbar is a frequent Review staff hangout post-deadline.
Carol always serves up exactly what we need after pulling together the paper each week.
Instead, I’m writing this column imploring village officials, notably the Board of Zoning Appeals, to reconsider their decision about music at CJ’s for historical reasons.
Orion was traditionally a resort area. A place to have fun. And, yes, fun should always include a little bit of music, whether it was the swing jazz when Lake Orion was in its prime as a vacation destination, or the rock bands who used to play at CJ’s on the weekends.
Whoever’s clamping their hands over their ears and shouting for the bar to turn down that dang music is losing touch not only with Orion’s past, but also threatening to make downtown a not very fun place in the future.
What is this, the little town in Footloose where they ban dancing?
If you start a nanny culture crusade downtown, what’s next? No loud music will lead to no shouting? No running? No talking?
Do we want to turn downtown into a library? A knitting circle? Downtown’s are supposed to be vibrant places with noise and a little commotion. If you let these antiseptic suburban sensibilities take over, Lake Orion of the 21st Century won’t be nearly as desirable as that of yore.
Why do people flock to live and play in areas like Birmingham, Royal Oak, Ferndale, Plymouth and Northville?
Because they, too, have old downtowns, but with a little bit of excitement.
So, village officials, bring the music back.
If anyone has a comment for John about this column, he can usually be found bellied up to the bar at CJ’s after 3 p.m. on Tuesdays. Or, for those who can’t take the jukebox, lakeorionreview@sbcglobal.net

OMG. It seems texting while driving isn’t anything to LOL about.
In case ur lost, OMG and LOL are commonly used abbreviations used while using the text messaging function on cell phones for ‘Oh, my God? and ‘Laugh out Loud.?
‘Ur,? of course, is a texty way of saying ‘you’re.?
A recent release from the Michigan State Medical Society says drivers are six times more likely to be distracted while driving and texting. It goes on to say that driving while distracted accounts for around 80 percent of crashes.
They cite a study which revealed text-messaging while driving is ‘becoming as dangerous as drinking and driving in terms of inhibiting one’s driving abilities.?
The worst text-related accident on record occurred last summer in New York state when five teen girls died after their car collided with a tractor. The driver had been texting seconds earlier.
OMG, indeed.
Now, there’s a race to legislate. I say go for it. People are terrible enough drivers as it is without having generally frivolous communications with friends and family.
You need two hands to drive and two hands to text. Do the math.
The problem is, I’d end up getting a ticket. I send mostly pointless text messages while driving all the time. No matter how many times I have to swerve to stay on the road or slam on my brakes so I don’t crash into the car ahead of me, I keep doing it.
It’s entertainment for long, boring car trips. And it feels good when someone LOLs at some little ditty you sent them.
I know I’m not alone. And maybe it will take government to put our hands back on the wheel.
K. TTYL, folks.

Marty Scypinski is a large man with large hands that nearly envelope mine during a handshake.
His towering frame cuts a formidable figure at almost every Orion Township Board of Trustees meeting.
But the only shake he seems to be getting from the township isn’t exactly fair.
Scypinski’s family has lived in the area for decades, longer, probably, than some of the members of the township board have been alive.
He owns some property down along Baldwin. After Orion’s great build-up during the last three decades, he thought he might try to develop some of the property, reap the benefits of having gotten here first.
He hooked up with some taco chains, who were ready to go, but he told me the deal was ultimately denied by the planning commission and township board. The taco place required 24-hour drive-thru capabilities; the township didn’t want to eat that late.
I bring all this up because at their last meeting, the township board granted a rezoning from residential to commercial at Baldwin and Maybee roads. They say it’s just the dirt being rezoned, but it’s more or less at the behest of CVS, who wants to move down Baldwin Road from its current location.
Orion is broadcasting a message here: CVSes of the world can have their way with the township while local property owners are made to jump through hoops.
CVS, in particular, is a current plague upon the landscape of nearly all communities I roll through.
They seem to be doing the same thing everywhere. Just yesterday, I was in Farmington Hills and saw a brand new CVS right across the street from a vacant building still bearing the grimy outline of the recently removed letters of the same chain. Why, CVS, why?
I’m sure they have some grand corporate plan that makes sense in a Woonsocket, Rhode Island office, but that’s a long way from Baldwin Road in Lake Orion.
Sure, their representatives show up to meetings and plead their case. But they usually pronounce Orion like the constellation and Gingellville with the hard Gs.
Would a local do that?

Dearest Fritz,
What gives, brother?
We haven’t heard from you in a while and we’re all getting a little bit worried.
The good folks in the town you once called home are anxiously awaiting news about the GM plant here.
Now that you’ve made good and are the head of the whole dang company, we’re hoping that you’d find it in your heart to look kindly on where you graduated from high school. We’re all guessing, considering the gig you’ve got now, that those were the best years of your life.
Do big, bad CEOs like yourself have the capacity to experience the bittersweetness of nostalgia? Come on, Fritz. Talk to us. Let us know what’s going on. Could ya maybe keep the plant open just for old time’s sake?
Signed,
Lake Orion
***
If you didn’t know, GM’s current CEO, Fritz Henderson, is a graduate of Lake Orion High School, class of 1976.
You probably didn’t know.
Any attempt to track down any information about his life in Lake Orion has proved difficult, leaving me to question whether Fritz has any fondness for his brief home.
I know he played baseball because I scoured old Reviews and found two mentions of his name in the sport pages.
Other than that, I’m guessing Fritz lived a quite, studious life in Lake Orion. Whether or not he had time to grow attached to the community is as slippery and elusive as Fritz himself.
Any questions about the connection I directed to the notoriously hushed mouths over at Giant Mess were politely denied with robot-P.R speak, ‘I’m sorry, but we are unable to process this request at the moment. Please hang up and try again.?
So, Fritz, if you’re out there, if you do indeed exist and are not an animatronic engineered and assembled in one of Giant Mess’s Brazilian plants, step forward and at least acknowledge the community you once called home, a community that may continue to thrive based on what you decide.
You needed Orion once. Now, they need you.

Really, what’s the point of casting a ballot in the costly school board election on Tuesday, May 5?
I picture tumbleweeds spiraling through polling places and election workers doing crossword puzzles.
All at a price.
I predict a sweeping Jim Weidman victory, considering he’s the only one on the ballot.
The election is nothing but an exercise in futility and a waste of taxpayer money. For those who haven’t heard, the school board recently voted to keep their elections in May instead of consolidating them with general elections in November. It makes the Lake Orion district one of only five still hanging on to May elections in the county.
They had a choice. Why don’t voting taxpayers have one?
Having school elections with general elections would get more voters involved and, just as important, save precious money in perilous economic times.
Getting the community involved is crucial. Separate elections only encourages the kind of apathy that leads to school board members coasting into new terms without having to explain themselves and what they think.
An unopposed election doesn’t bring any of the issues up for public debate.
And the district does have some issues.
It would have been nice to hear what would have been said in a spirited election about all-day everyday kindergarten, the firing of LOHS Principal Todd Dunckley, the autism hearings and when to hold the elections.
Instead, the issues (many of which involve tax dollars, whether captured locally or gotten through the state) are only discussed among a few.
From what I understand, this is how the school board likes it. Too many questions and intrusions bogs down the process. This is fine if the goal is quick and efficient government. But the good folks in the school district do, ultimately, work for the taxpayer. Different voices should be heard.
Now, this isn’t just a bash the schools column. Having the elections in November may get more people involved, but it isn’t certain.
Everyone seems to have something to say about taxes these days, so why not put action where your mouth is and get involved.
And there’s no better place to start than right in Orion.
I implore members of the community to make sure another unopposed election doesn’t occur. Get involved. Run for office.
If there was an opponent, then the election might be worth the money–an estimated $20,000.
The district should be concerned with this sum. While it was good news there was only one teacher pink-slipped this year, the district, like everyone these days, is looking for ways to do more with less.
I should mention the schools are required by state law to hold the elections, even when they’re unopposed.
So, on Tuesday, don’t bother heading to your local polling place. Not voting will make it more obvious the elections need to be changed.
If I may suggest some alternate activities, I’m sure Sagebrush is offering Cinco de Mayo drink specials. In this case, getting snookered on margaritas and Coronas wouldn’t be a dereliction of civic duty.
If the election spending seems drunk and excessive, then why shouldn’t taxpayers be drunk themselves.
If only some of the money spent on the election could pick up the taxpayer’s bar tab.
For those teetotallers among us, it might be nice to stop in at the polling place to visit the bored election workers. They will need some company.
Now, to Mr. Weidman’s credit, I think he is an asset to the school board and the community.
He’s taking the initiative to get financial issues on the board meeting agenda. He’s also requested a second look at when to hold the elections.
So, for you civic minded do-gooders who really feel the need to vote despite any opposition or debate, I officially lend my support to Weidman.
I bet you a Corona he wins.

Skateboarders are a nuisance.
They destroy public and private property. They howl at young girls and deliberately terrify the elderly. They skip school and have an anti-authoritarian bent.
The racket of the wheels rumbling along the pavement is enough to send you reaching for cotton balls.
I know, because my best friends growing up were skateboarders. Full confession, I was also in punk rock bands that catered to the subculture associated with the sport.
And, speaking from a position of intimacy with that culture, a skate park in either the village or the township will help, but it will never solve the problem skateboarding poses to the community.
Like motorcycles, a certain rebellious mystique surrounds skateboarding. It’s this same spirit that’s going to keep skaters whizzing down public streets, attempting 360 kickflips in parking lots and breaking bones on your property. So, while a skate park may give some of these ruffians a place to go, it won’t keep them off the streets for good.
It’s a cultural fact: most parents would rather have little Johnny become the star quarterback of the football team than a skater with floppy hair who listens to punk rock or hip hop music (the two genres usually associated with skaters.)
I spoke recently to an old skater friend of mine (who shall remain nameless) about all this.
Now an adult with a respectable job, wife and kids, he doesn’t skate much anymore, but his face lit up when I asked about the relationship between misbehavior and skateboarding.
He told me stories about skating in the parking lots of police stations just so the cops would chase them, all for the thrill of it.
It always becomes awkward when official entities recognize an activity rebellious in nature. Once something like that is mandated by ‘The Man,? it loses its potency.
And that’s why some kids will ignore the park altogether. In some ways, it’s like going to a rock concert with your grandma.
Still, I think the township and village should pursue plans to build a skate park, hopefully somewhere in the village. It would be a great attraction, and promote something that was close to the heart of many of my friends growing up. I’m just offering a warning. So, after (if) the park is built and a pack of skaters nearly knocks you on your tush while you’re walking downtown, don’t say I didn’t warn you.

My initial ideas about how to enjoy the current economic times are, in no particular order, roller skating, a hot dog eating contest and polka dancing.
But these all cost money (skate rentals, hot dogs, beer for the polka band, etc.) and no one has any of that to spend (except, of course, our federal government).
You don’t need me telling you how bad it is out there, brothers and sisters. Now, I’m no economic guru, so I can’t suggest a big fix, but I’ve been listening to those who have been talking.
They use words like ‘despair? ‘grim? ‘economic crises? and ‘downturn.? But what I’ve mostly been hearing, is that the problem is our confidence.
People in America just aren’t feeling too good about themselves. So, instead of adding to the doom and gloom rhetoric, here are just a few cheap or free ‘fun? ideas of what we can do to boost our morale.
1) Kiss a capitalist.
Kisses are free and these folks are hurting the worst. The new Commies in charge are shelling out scratch like there’s no tomorrow. The markets continue to fall. Maybe a little smooch will get them to start investing again.
2) House ‘colding? parties
We all know about house-warming parties, but what about the couple whose just had their home foreclosed on? Why not head over there and give ’em a hand stripping every last appliance, garage door opening system and cupboard door from the place. Don’t forget the kitchen sink.
3) Serenade a banker
The power of song can soothe and reinvigorate. Get a Wall Street phone book and start dialing at random. When a hoarse, gruff voice answers, start belting out whatever tune comes to mind. Neil Diamond and Barry Manilow are preferable. Make sure you are loud enough to be heard over the party going on in the background on the banker’s end. Get a group together.
What are some of your ideas? Let us know in a letter to the editor. Send them via email at lakeorionreview@sbcglobal.net

So Orion Township is going through the horrifically boring, tedious and usually meaningless process of looking at their master plan.
Still, it’s importance has been bandied about by officials, especially new supervisor Matt Gibb, who sees it as a tool to thrust off the fusty mentality of past Orion leadership and remake the township.
For those who aren’t hep to what a master plan is, it is not Orion Township’s clandestine plot to take over the world.
It’s an overview of everything physically in the township from roads, land use and zoning. Gibb wants to utilize it to make it easier for companies to do business in Orion.
At a recent meeting of the Downtown Development Authority (DDA), Gibb also remarked that he’d like to see the Lake Orion area become home to that mysterious cabal, ‘the creative class.?
The much ballyhooed concept comes from Richard Florida, who wrote a book claiming urban areas that attract young professionals and pseudo-bohemians between the ages of 24-35 prosper.
Does this mean getting rid of bait shops, hair salons and the American Legion hall because hipsters will look down their noses through their black-rimmed glasses at them?
Are sushi bars, vintage record shops and boutiques in Orion’s future?
Actually, the opposite would happen. If the township approaches the master plan solely to accommodate business development, you’ll see more charmless chains sniffing around.
Orion would then become the chain store and chain restaurant buffer between Pontiac and Oxford, where the good denizens of both would come for a plate of Jalapeno Poppers at the new TGIF’s on Baldwin Road after it’s widened.
Gibb’s thinking is admittedly progressive, an example of the generational shift that occurred when he took over after Jerry Dywasuk.
This has its benefits. An infusion of young people with new ideas is healthy for the township, how the world has always rolled.
But please don’t forget the folks who have lived here for years. I don’t want to see Lake Orion’s unique, old-school charm swept away and replaced with a gleaming new Jamba Juice.

Get up on your Google and type in ‘Lake Orion, MI?
It’s no surprise that a Wikipedia entry is the first thing to pop up–Google anything and the user-created encyclopedia is usually the first thing screaming at your eyes.
Though not maintained by any established entity, it’s mostly reliable in my experience, yet I still cast a dubious eye on its information. And yet it is the first gateway into our community on the Internet.
The second entry is the Web site for Orion Township. The new Village of Lake Orion’s Web site is no where to be seen for page clicks at a time, seemingly buried in a cyber-pile. (The address is http://www.lakeorion.org)
That’s a shame, because the new village site is fanciful to the eye and informative to the curious compared to the township’s site.
The new village site’s homepage has pictures of kids having fun on a carnival ride faded in with other photos of the village offices, a colorful hot air balloon and the sign welcoming folks to downtown.
It sends a message: this is a place to have fun.
Now, compare this with the homepage of the township’s Web site, at http://www.oriontownship.org/. The page loads and what do we see? A sketchy looking picture of township hall that looks like it was taken from a plane about to drop a bomb on it. What message does that send?
While the village site has an aesthetically pleasing blue background color, the township’s is a stark white, making the small, ill-sized photo even more noticeable.
Now, don’t get me wrong, the township’s site is chock full of useful information, as is the new village site, but as Web presence becomes more crucial in an era when the Internet is affecting all media, I think it’s time the township does a redesign.
What company is going to want to do business with a community that has a Web site looking like it’s from 1998, the prehistoric age of page design?
What young couple looking to buy a home is going to visit that site and say, ‘Yeah, that place is for us??
Follow the village’s lead, township, before they’re on top of the Google search, and you’re the one that’s buried.

Hey 2009. I see you over there, hiding your face, playing coy.
I just want to tell you, I think you’re going to be the best year ever!
Truth is, while many folks use the new year as reasons for new beginnings, most of them fail.
Those new gym memberships will lapse and the work-out clothes will find a home in the back of your closet. Your credit card collectors will start calling again after those few months of staying away from the mall. The bottle still beckons.
Sorry 2009. Wipe your eyes. I still like you. Things can change, I suppose.
Down at township hall, for instance, we’ve got a new supervisor and a new board.
So far, my only prognostications are good for Oh, Nine!
Matthew Gibb has set a brisk pace with the meetings. I dig this. It’s not just good for journalists like me whose eyes start rolling into the back of their heads when politicians talk for three hours on whether to purchase a new jungle gym at a park.
It’s good for Orion. The quicker items are dealt with, the more time can be spent on more important stuff. Prioritize, board of trustees.
In other news, some hooligan ran into the brick wall surrounding the Scripps Estate. I say ‘hooligan? because who else would destroy a ten-foot section of the wall and drive off without claiming responsibility.
The cobblestone fence, built even before the mansion, is part of the estate that in 2007 was put on the National Registry of Historic Places. This makes it very expensive to get the damage repaired because it has to adhere to certain guidelines.
So, hooligan, you’re not just damaging someone’s property (though you’re doing that, too) you’re wrecking history.
If you’re the one responsible, please step forward. If you know the person responsible, give them a quick, swift kick you know where and make them fess up. Otherwise, the community’s going to gather up some musket-toting Civil War reenactors who will come after you.
History will come back to haunt you, hooligan.

Take a what-if drive around Lake Orion on December 17, 2012. The streets are mostly empty except for the occasional vagrants and hoodlums.
Storefronts are boarded up. Shops, restaurants, even the big box stores are closed. A ghost town.
Governments have been reduced to poor, ineffectual entities rife with corruption. People with any sort of brains and abilities have moved out long ago. Even the local newspaper has ceased to publish.
There’s no money to keep decent police and fire departments, so the village has been turned into a red-light district. The Ehman Center has finally found its true use as a brothel. Drugs are everywhere. Fires burn uncontrollably.
The lake is now nothing more than sludge. Homes all over the township have been abandoned by humans, replaced by ‘coons and other wildlife.
Down on Silverbell is the rotted-out remains of a hulking factory, now just a husk of what it once was. Its smokestacks have crumbled. No one bothers to clean up any of the debris that blows in the sea-like parking lots.
Beyond a barbed wire fence is a piece of plywood leaning against a rusted out Chevy Malibu. Written in colorful graffiti is the grim epitaph:
R.I.P.
General Motors Orion Assembly Plant
1983-2008.
***
Sound like a bad science fiction movie from the 1980s?
I only wish that it were. The truth is, these doomsday scenarios are on everyone’s minds these days.
I don’t need to say it, because it’s been said so many times already, but these boobs in Washington need to understand the ramifications of what happens if the auto industry goes away.
I don’t need to say it, but since there seems to be some issue with grasping the enormity of the problem, I will scream it out loud, if just for the sake of sating my own frustrations.
It…would…be…catastrophic.
Just to catch you up on what’s going on: in November, GM announced around 650 lay-offs at the Orion plant. Last week, they said the third shift would be eliminated, affecting 390 more jobs, bringing the total number of jobs impacted to 1,200.
In turn, these affect Tier I, II and III suppliers, who, without GM and the other Big Three, would shrivel up and also go away.
These are your friends, your neighbors, but most of all, your customers.
New township supervisor Matthew Gibb says that the Orion plant is entrenched in the community and that if it were to close, the impact would be devasting.
‘It’s been an anchor in the community,? he said.
The township would be hurting for money if the plant closed, he said.
And Orion schools, which receive a considerable amount of funding from the plant’s taxes, would have the most signifiacnt loss of revenue.
But what Gibb was most concerned about was what he called the ‘human element.?
Without the plant, less people traffic in and out of Orion. That means less people dining at places like Christi’s Bar and Grille.
This means less jobs in service and retail. And so on and so forth.
Gibb brought up another interesting point concerning another area automaker under the congressional gun.
It would be just as bad if Chrysler in Auburn Hills, where many work who live in Orion, went under.
It’s obvious that for the nation, for the state and for Orion, these companies cannot go away.
And if they do, we may just have a Mad Max/Terminator-type of reality to face in the future.
So, what counts this week? Cans of tuna and bottled water. Stock up.

Bravo, Dragons.
You’re the talk of the town.
At dinner tables, diners, taverns and governmental meetings, people can’t help but keep talking about your miraculous season.
And justly so.
You may not have pulled off a state championship (next year, perhaps?), but you’ve done something just as important–you’ve brought the Lake Orion community together like never before.
At Saturday’s game, an entire side of Ford Field was a sea of green and white.
It was a sight so impressive that it was difficult to focus on the game being played.
There were so many people there, that village and township officials joked there must not be anyone left in all of Orion.
They were there with painted faces, signs and banners.
And, despite the loss, they are all still there in spirit, reserving a seat for next year.
Football, we know, is more than just a game, and this season proved it. A great team like the Dragons gives people a common bond. People from different walks of life may not be able to agree on a lot of things, may not have anything to talk about at all.
But then, once the conversation turns to football, the worst enemies can find they have something in common in the community.
This is what the Dragons have done for Lake Orion this season. I’m a case in point. I’m relatively new to the area. It’s not always easy meeting a slew of people and trying to find something to talk about. But, no matter what, whoever I was sitting next to at any given event, if I brought up the Dragons, I’d find a friend.
So Ford Field may be over and behind you, but please know the community’s got your back. We’ll see you at the Orion Lighted Parade on Saturday.
And hopefully Ford Field again next year.

Everyone in this story shall remain anonymous.
Except me, of course. You already know who I am.
It’s strange to think we’re all anonymas to a much larger part of the world than those who will ever be familiar with us.
And all those anonymous folks are the ones out to get us, right?
They cut us off on the freeway and talk on their cell phones during movies.
Well, here’s a story that may give you a little more faith in the general public and reinstill the sense that you don’t need to know who it is you’re helping.That what counts is the gesture, not what you think you can get in return.
So, here’s the story.
Each week, we publish a police log, which involves quickly digging through reports at the Lake Orion Police Station and the Oakland County Orion Substation on Monday.
On Oct. 27, while going through the village log, I came across a report of a missing ring.
I didn’t think too much of it. Lots of things are reported missing to the police: Ipods, credit cards, you name it.
I scribbled it down and continued to wade through the other three or four dozen items before me.
On my way out of the station, I stopped and chatted with Chief Jerry Narsh, who went out of his way to tell me about the ring.
Chief Narsh asked me, if I could, to make extra mention in the paper that a ring was found in the village parking lot behind the station.
He said it was a wedding ring, quite expensive and unique enough in its design that there wouldn’t be a doubt about its ownership: whoever could describe it had to have lost it.
Chief Narsh mentioned something about Cinderella, I believe, and that it needed to get back onto the finger of its owner.
I included the item in the police log that week and forgot all about it.
Flash-forward two weeks to yesterday, when we received a visitor here at the paper.
It was Cinderella herself, the recovered ring slipped back onto her finger.
She told an amazing story.
Cinderella had been waiting in line at the bank when the man in front of her began talking about a certain ring he’d found, turned it into the village police and that it had been mentioned in the Review’s police log.
This, of course, made her ears perk and attention pique.
Could it be the very ring she lost? What were the odds of running into the person who found it at the bank? Surely in this economy, whoever found it had hocked it and kept the money. Right?
Wrong.
In what turned out to be a very serendipitous trip to the bank, it was the very ring she lost, the one that was now back on her finger as she told her tale in our office.
But she will remain anonymous because it seems to support the theme that even strangers can be generous, that random acts of kindness are possible.
I was also so taken in by the story that I forgot to get her name.

This time of year, I’m generally getting home from grouse hunting in the Upper Peninsula, hopefully with a few birds in the game bag, but always with a renewed sense of wonder for the world.
There’s nothing like spending a week trampling around the woods, which blaze with color that far north weeks before they do down here, to give you a sense of proportion.
It forces you to think in different ways than we do in our jumbled, workaday lives. You enter a more primal mode of thinking where the vagaries of civilization are shed. Get lost for a few hours in the backcountry of the U.P., and you’ll never forget just how insignificant we are on a cosmic level. It’s where the Native Americans found wonder in their lives, and where I do, too.
Due to my continuing ‘Orion’tation, I unfortunately had to miss the trip this year. But looking out my downtown office window at the rusty arch of limbs suspended over Broadway, I’m trying not forget that sense of wonder.
I know I’m going to need it. You see, the leaves aren’t the only thing changing. It’s all around us: here at the paper, in Orion, and the rest of the country. Keeping things in perspective with all this change is crucial.
First off, as you may have noticed in the masthead and bylines of the Review, I am now the editor. The paper also welcomes a new reporter to the staff, Rebecca Kelley. We wish Colin well in his new endeavors. He did a fine job of covering Orion, and we are both committed to keeping it up.
With that said, let me apologize for a few errors in the last couple issues.
If there was a picture of you in the paper and your name was Peggy but the caption said you were someone else, I am sorry.
If your name was mistakenly spelled ‘Don? instead of ‘Neil,? I’m sorry.
If, in the middle of a story, it said ‘Continued on page 19,? and when you got to page 19 and found a full page ad for a bank or pizzeria, I’m sorry.
These were technical and organizational glitches, but if it continues I will personally petition to get a pair of stocks installed at Children’s Park. I will then voluntarily stick head and arms in and invite villagers to pelt me with things: a tomato for a typo; a melon per misreport. I don’t think I’ve misquoted you yet, Councilman Toth, but if I do, feel free to launch a pumpkin my way.
But beyond our own changes here at the paper, what’s more significant is the changes in our communities, large and small, that the election on Nov. 4 will bring. So, what counts this week? You guessed it, your vote.
That’s right, it’s time to get out there to participate in that grand American tradition of casting a ballot.
The most annoying by-product of elections is noise. Screaming heads on our televisions turn national politics into nothing more than shouting matches where both sides try to overwhelm voters? ears. Whoever’s loudest, the thinking goes, wins.
These practices then influence politics down through the state, county and local levels. Part of my ‘Orion’tation, for example, has been sitting through hours of township and village meetings where I’ve witnessed a fair amount of useless bickering.
It makes it difficult to remember that elections are about more than who has the power now, who’s trying to get it and how. Elections are about you. Us. All of us. They are about how we want to organize ourselves on this planet, and how we want to be represented in history.
So, this year, as I head into the booth, I’m going to plug my ears and try to channel the solitude of the wilderness when I vote.
I will try to drown out some of the noise and soundbites lodged in my head, and vote from a place that sees the world in a larger scope, where petty arguments and partisan bickering aren’t as important as the participants lead us to believe.
I suggest you try a little of this yourself. Then, maybe, whenever we find ourselves lost in the woods, it will be a little easier to find our way out.