November 5, 1998
Dear Everyone:
Well, thank heavens that’s over.
The
election, I mean. Things
were getting pretty hot and heavy towards the end.
Believe it or not, at least eight different political parties
were represented in the governor’s and senator’s races here in
California.
Talk about diversity!!!
That’s twice as many parties as I had
Trick-Or-Treat-ers on
Halloween.
That’s a lot of choices to have to make.
Throw in 12 propositions and the school board and I was just
about ready to vote Yes on odd and No on even just to finish before the
polls closed. But first, I
had to get there.
Remember, I moved last year; so I had a completely
new voting poll to
locate. And after work, it
was very dark outside. And
the voter registration card had the wrong address (2020 Shadow Mountain
Drive when it should have been 2620 Shadow Mountain Drive).
So first, I had to find Shadow Mountain Drive (in the dark), then
look for 2020 (when it was too dark to see any street numbers).
After driving up and down a half-dozen times, I noticed a flag
pole (in the dark) and figured it had to be some place close by.
So I parked next to the flag and got out of the
car. Now, I could just make
out a paper sign that read “Vote Here”.
The sign was taped to a bush.
(Vote for the bush of your choice, but vote.)
Further signs were taped to carports along a street identified as
Glen Mountain Drive. (In
fact, the aforementioned flag was lashed to the street sign that read
“Glen Mountain Drive”.)
Somehow 2620 Shadow Mountain Drive was actually at the end of Glen
Mountain Drive.
I should have known that when the registration card
said, “…association clubhouse…”, I was going to have trouble.
Why couldn’t we have done this back in June when you could see
outside at 5:45? And what’s
wrong with using someone’s garage that you can see from the street?
At any rate, I finally found the poll (the number
next to the door said 2619, not 2620) and voted against the politicians
of my choice. And just about
everything I voted for and against won and lost.
So I guess my sacrifice was worth it.
Civic duty done, even if it just encourages all those pesky
politicians.
And as for, “Vote early, vote often, vote
Democrat”, it seems to have done the trick.
If the
Republicans had won big (as some expected), they would have said to
themselves, “Gee, look what
Monica did
for us. Let’s drag it out
for another two years.” Now
maybe they’ll shut up and get back to their real jobs for a change.
In other news…
25 years ago, I got a job with Standard XXX Company
of California. I figured I’d
stay with the job until something better fell into my lap.
So far, nothing has.
And, while I’ve worked in many different areas, and the company changed
its name to Company Corporation, technically, I’m still working at the
same place.
Actually, the anniversary was back in May, but this
past week was the first chance we had to get all the necessary people
together for a celebration luncheon.
As the guest of honor, I got to choose the restaurant.
I selected the
Wente Winery
in the Livermore
valley. It is in a
beautiful setting, right in the middle of its own vineyards.
And they do their own olives, too.
If you want to pick a nice place, and someone else is picking up
the tab, I highly recommend it.
But first, we had to get there.
“Elaine” had volunteered to drive the company van.
Also, we had to pick up our manager whose car was being worked on
at the Mazda dealership
in Livermore, which was right on our way to the winery.
Only we didn’t have a street address, just the name
of the freeway exit. On the
plus side, at least it was light out as we raced up one street and down
another, looking for a big sign that read “Mazda”.
And I know
Livermore
almost as well as I do downtown
Baghdad, so I wasn’t
much help. However, on the
way to (and from) the Mazda place, I learned about several different
ways to get to the Camelot amusement park, which boasts no less than
three 18-hole courses of miniature golf.
This could be useful in the future.
Eventually, we did find the Mazda dealer and the
manager; and we weren’t even the last ones to arrive at the winery.
So all’s well that ended well.
Let’s do it again in another 25 years.
Love, as always,
Pete
PS. The
Snail Mail version was slow because I was on a field trip on Thursday
and couldn’t get to the mail until late afternoon.
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