good days in Irvington

I left most of this comment on rightwingprof's post, but I think I'll repeat it here.

We've just had our board election, and it was wonderful. At the train station last night all 3 candidates (for two board positions) were handing out their literature; people were streaming into the school to vote; balloons were floating from stop signs and light poles.

Beautiful.

Our guy lost. We bullet-voted for the person we thought most likely to force a change in the administration as quickly as possible. We liked both the other guys; if we could have elected all 3 we would have.

But we couldn't, so we bullet-voted for just one.

So... our guy lost, and we were disappointed .....

..... and then I realized I wasn't disappointed. I was happy the two men who had won would be joining the board.

I felt as if "the people have spoken" and the people know what they're talking about.

(How often does that happen?)

It's not that I felt, suddenly, that my vote was wrong.

I just felt that I can't predict the future; this may not be the time for the man we supported to serve (one of the other candidates had run before and lost); maybe his energies "are supposed to be" directed elsewhere at this moment in time.....

I felt that I was living in a community of serious people doing serious things.

I felt I could trust their judgment.

And I do.