Today was a pleasant and relaxing day as I accompanied Richard thru a series of errands. This was also a sort of "day off" for him from what has apparently become his regular routine of campaigning for a state representative seat by going door-to-door for seven hours. He doesn't really expect to win, but he does expect to get more than 40% of the vote - which is at least a little better than being a sacrificial lamb as a Republican running for office in W. Mt. Airy.
The town of Dent with an official population of 192 is too small to have much in the way of services, but they do have a town hall. It proved to be a bare wooden building about a hundred yards down a dirt road. We stopped there first so that Richard could vote, since today was primary day in Minnesota. There was a table with four registrars with the usual voting registration information. Richard signed in and then went to one side of the room where there were three or four cubbies set up and where he made checkmarks with a pen or pencil on his paper ballot. Quite a change from voting in Philadelphia where I just go into a booth and push
buttons. Then Richard put the ballot thru some kind of printer-like machine that I had never seen before which recorded his vote. We took a few minutes to chat with the registrars since we were the only voters in the building. Unlike the other polling places, this one hadn't even opened up until 10:00 and by now (around 11:00), only ten other people had voted.
Since Dent is so small, to do Richard's errands we had to travel to Fergus Falls, about 20 miles from here. Fergus Falls has a population of about 13,000. It's the closest town of any considerable size and does have a little bit of everything. including a very nice theater which seats about 500.
The dry cleaners was the first stop. The woman behind the counter addressed Richard by name. We chatted for a while and Richard left a pile of his campaign calling cards on the counter.
Next stop was the real estate office that is arranging for Richard's rental of a campaign office. This involved a fairly long conversation about how the real estate man was an independent but was leaning toward the democrats. He said he really didn't like the "extremists" of either party.
While walking around I also took a peek thru the front windows of the very attractive senior center where there were several tables of people playing cards. It looked a lot like the center in Israel where Elise' brother goes every day.
Richard was ready to keep going, but it was close to 1:00 by then and I was getting hungry, so Richard let me persuade him to stop for lunch. We went to a pleasant restaurant where I had a very tasty tuna salad and the two of us split a large portion of double chocolate bread pudding which is apparently the house specialty - and rightly so.
Finally we stopped by the local community college where Anna works as the provost, waited out a heavy rainstorm, and then went back to the house.
Their house is really beautiful with a great view of the lake. I had the whole finished basement to myself; the only problem was that the house was a bit over airconditioned for my taste. I shouldn't have to wear a heavy fleece sweater in August.
Anna prepared a delicious supper of chicken in some kind of very tasty sauce, mashed potatoes and corn on the cob. The corn came from a local farmer. She has purchased several shares in his farm and this entitles her to a share of his crops. If it's a good year she gets more; if it's a bad year she gets less. After dinner we talked for a little while and then called it a day.
It's really been a great visit. One never knows for sure how it will go, seeing old friends after a number of years, but in this case, it was a pleasure and I'm glad I included this stop in my trip.
No comments:
Post a Comment