Thanksgiving weekend is upon us. As a child I don’t remember Thanksgiving being as being a big deal. It might just be that now I’m more aware and a lot older, so it seems more important.
The celebration of 2015 is the first time in my memory that we can both celebrate and vote on the same day. When I went to the advanced polling station today I was surprised to see several youth workers helping out with the polling duties.
In the past elections, all the polling workers have been retirees. I was so tickled seeing those two young workers, I commended them in their initiative to become part of the process. The female retiree working with them said to me, ” I guess that means you are calling me old?”
She had to ask it, she just couldn’t let it go, and of course I had to answer her question. I said, “yes!” She said,”that’s not very nice!” And another female retiree agreed with her.
I said, ” you just have to be thankful! ” Her reply, “it is just a number.” I guess it all could have been handled with humor and the focus would have stayed on the youth where it belonged. How easy it is for a subject to get misdirected.
The other day I was walking through our back yard when I found a female item on our walking path. It was cylindrical, about three inches long and colored. My first thought was that someone threw it over the fence.
My second thought was, those crows, they will pick up anything. I went and got some paper and picked it up and threw it in the garbage.
You have to understand that I’ve done janitorial work for the last five years and I’ll come across an item like that during my work.
The next day, I was talking to my neighbor who has a 12 year old son. His son has a Nerf dart gun and was playing with it when he shot a dart over our garage and into our yard. “Had I seen it?” He asked.
It dawned on me that the perceived “female item” was not. If I hadn’t picked it up with paper, I would have discerned a texture difference in the product.
I went to the garbage can and retrieved the Nerf dart and explained my story to the father. He had a good laugh.