Two weeks ago Kevin Hoke w/his winning ways persuaded me to help out at the polls on Tuesday, May 17.
I'd done it for two years when New Directions met on a Thursday nite. Now we're back to Tuesdays.
Well, I said to Kevin, I'll only work there if they'll let me leave early for my meeting.
Done, said Kevin, who knows nothing.
I was hoping Nick Scull, head of the Dems, would forget to contact me.
He contacted me.
I arrived at 6:30 am at the polling place around the corner at the Willow Grove Baptist Church.
They gave me a button to wear: Machine Operator.
I was in utter terror!
It was actually the easiest job there.
Here's what I said to each voter: Use this booth. I'll activate it for you.
Then I would press two buttons: Democratic or Republican and Activate.
You'd hear a musical sound and then it was ready for the voter.
There were problems, of course. Lots of em. But my buddy Curtiss McG was there to give me a hand.
Earlier, when we were sitting waiting for some action, he had noticed something on the wall - a series of masking tapes that didn't 'hold' on the wall - and I said to him, You must be an engineer.
Indeed he was a retired engineer. He told me where he'd worked.
Dyou know my friend Aaron Ryesky, I asked.
He was my boss, said Curt. Very very smart man, very low-key, easy to get along with.
There were five pollworkers in the tiny room w/ two voting machines. We all got along splendidly. The boss was Sally. Nick Scull, the former boss, called her yesterday and begged her to be the "judge" at our polls.
When he called her yesterday, she was in Florida.
Sure enuf, she flew home to Willow Grove, and like me, could barely drag herself out of bed the next day.
One man - Ed Miller - totally forgot about it. He did arrive around 11 and was a great conversationalist, as was Bernice, who I knew from the library.
Ed Miller has written a couple of books. He went home and brought us the ms. of a new novel he co-wrote with a friend. It's currently being read by the agent of Dean Koontz. He passed around the ms. and everyone read a bit of it.
Not half bad!
All the while I was in XP (short for excrucating pain from sciatica). All I could think of was going home and taking a Percocet.
But the day was young. And time went ever so slow.
I asked to be excused - for good - at 6:30 pm after a flurry of voters came in.
Sally surprised me by saying, We need you to come back to sign the voting machine receipts.
Come back at 8:25 pm.
Are you sure? I said.
Yes.
All right, I'll be back, I said.
Drove home and then went to the New Directions meeting. Introduced the guest speaker and then I left at 8:20 pm.
Drove back to the church w/ aching leg, signed the receipts, and then headed back to the church.
At meeting's end, everyone wants to talk to me.
I can't talk, I said, walking quickly up the hall.
Went home and took a Perc, smallest amount possible. It actually helped. Fell asleep to Part 2 of the Frontline report on the Meth Epidemic in Oregon.
Is that what you wanna fall asleep to, I asked myself.
Yes.http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
I fell asleep after 10 minutes. I did hear that it's the most addictive of all drugs, that cops can recognize a meth user a mile away, that Oregon has come up w/ its own approach to combat addictions.
B/c meth is 'cut' w/a variety of materials that are not sposed to be ingested by the human body (like Drano) a variety of facial deformities are present in its users. Sickening!
But it's reality, ladies and gentlemen.
Once upon a time when I was a therapist at Bristol-Bensalem I had lots of meth addicts. I wrote a story about one of em, a woman, and got it published in the now-defunct Med-i-phors, Eugene Radice, MD editor. It was called Rescue Me. I have it somewhere in the middle room in Aunt Ethel's white dresser.
Oh no! I've entered the Mediphors mindset. Ronald Pies, MD, also published there. He was a contributing writer to Psychiatric Times which I subscribed to for many years until I hung up my psychiatric shingle.
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