Elections & Democracy

This morning, Yes Weekly, a newspaper serving the Greensboro/Triad area published a whiny little rant from columnist Jim Longworth, who has declared Democratic candidate for NC-06, Jay Ovittore, unworthy of air time on his little TV show "Triad Today." Never mind that most of the 6th district has never heard of Longworth or Triad Today - to my mind, his refusal to give equal time to a candidate if he so requests may actually be a violation of NC Election Law. That is something I will check into when I get home.

It's been a good week for John Edwards in Iowa, the nation's first election in the race for President. First, he has been featured by Newsweek as the "Sleeper" candidate.

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Things were booming in Central Pennsylvania, as I like to say "Coal was King", and my Dad had worked his way from dozer operator to foreman. He had a company truck and gas and was making about $35,000 a year (1980 $s). The house we lived in was paid for as far as I can recall, we vacationed at Disney World, spent the summers and Easter in Benson and Wrightsville, and Christmas was spectacular.

We had a tradition that started in those years of going out to a nearby tree farm, walking through the woods and rows of trees looking for just the right one. We even got to the point where we could afford those big, beautiful, blue spruce trees and still to this day I consider THAT a Christmas tree. My mom was nuts about Christmas, we had tinsel on the tree, every ornament we'd ever made, garland up the banister, the stockings were hung with care, a Santa outside upon whose plastic list my mom had written the names of every kid in our town - you get the picture. Christmas was magic, pure magic, the whole season. The cookies, the pies, the cakes, the turkey, ham, nutbread with cream cheese. Uh, it was awesome.

Until we stole that Christmas tree.