Who? The 20-pound carp, of course! He was pulled from the small pond at West Park last November and moved to a more appropriate location at Gallup Park. Anyone who has ever kayaked in the Huron River at the right time of day during the carp mating season knows that the little pond at West Park is *not* suitable for a great big carp. I know from experience that a big old carp can knock a baggy old kayak woman around in her boat pretty darn well.

The carp quickly joined a few other local Twitter celebrities like the Dexter Bare Bear (@DexterMiBear) and the @AnnArborCougar and I of course began following the carp (@twentypoundcarp)*. The bare bear and the cougar kind of faded into the woodwork and so did the carp for a while. Until this election season. Now he seems to have gone “viral” and maybe some of y’all have even heard of him (er, her? hmmm, not sure).

I was voter number three this morning. I got there at 6:57 and Mr. Lovett, who is “always” first and one other guy were ahead of me. Actually, Mr. Lovett is not *always* first. *I* was first once in the last couple years. I can’t remember which election that was. Now that I know who our #1 voter is, I will always let him be first, even if I get there before him. As usual, there was a bit of a kerfuffle with us first few voters as various poll workers flubbed up the procedure. I don’t hold this against them. If we held elections (for whatever) every week, these people would know exactly what they were doing. We don’t and I know it ain’t easy for a poll worker to remember what the heck you had to do with that laptop a few months ago. As luck would have it, the Ballot Eater was also not working correctly. It would not eat anyone’s ballot and we all (the three of us) had to stuff our ballots into an “Emergency Ballot Slot” or something. They put a call in to Election Central and the GG reports that the Ballot Eater was fixed by the time he voted this evening after work.

The GG was voter #281 and he actually had to wait in a line to vote, albeit a short line. Actually, that’s a pretty good number of people for the kind of election it was. We were voting for two things. One was a city council member. There was only one name on the ballot and it was that of the incumbent and I like him okay so I voted for him. Two other folks campaigned as write-ins. The second issue was approval to continue the school district’s sinking fund millage. Those are not issues that tend to get people to vote, as important as they are. But 281 (and counting) voters for a little election like this is a bit heartening. Except that I wonder how much of that is due to the 20-pound carp’s campaign, which may have made folks actually notice that there was an election today.

I don’t have much else to say except VOTE. Especially in these little local elections. They are important. It can be hard to understand all of the issues. They are complex and not always articulated in a way that a busy worker / parent / whatever can understand. I know because I am guilty of not voting for a few years. I still don’t understand all of the issues and their various complexities but I now *try* to pay as much attention as I can to polly-ticks and I was able to choose who and what to vote for without just picking a name that I had vaguely heard of before or a party. I’m not 100% crazy about my voting choices today but they are the best I could do with what was available. If more folks would get involved on a local level, I think we might end up with better choices on every level. But I am not holding my breath.

* Why do I follow these entities on Twitter? I do not know. Probably the same reason I follow God, Lake Superior, and Pope Francis’s Latin Twitter feed. Because I can! Do they all follow me back? Of course not!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 5th, 2013 at 7:14 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.