Had a great morning yesterday. Spent some time with students involved in special ed programs from all over Lane County. 300 students all in one place for a fun day. They got to go play games at Willamette High School in Eugene. At the start of the day there was a parade that I was invited to host. As I watched the students walk by I saw so many kids who’ve touched my life over the years. They’d run up to me and give me huge, amazing hugs. I thought to myself, I do miss that part of my old life. My friend Josh reminded me, they are still a part of my new life. Josh is out of the office for a few days but when he returns he’ll post some video we shot at the event.
Archive for May, 2008
I’m on the road. We have a place at Welches and I’ve been up here for almost a week. I use it as my motel and spend most of my day in the Portland area. I met with Rick Metzger over the weekend. He lives in Welches. Kathy and I went to a Gordon Smith Event in Tigard on Monday. Tuesday I taped a TV appearance with a group of second graders from the Clackamas area. It felt really good to do something normal again, like read to some school kids. I spoke in Lake Oswego. My twin sister Judi met me there. (She lives there). Later in the day I met with an expert on the Open Primary Initiative that we may be voting on in the fall. I stopped by to see my mom, who lives just a few miles from my appointment and then back to the Welches home.
Today it’s a meeting with a former gubernatorial candidate, a meeting with the folks from the nursery (plants) industry, a meeting with initiative supporters and I’ll finish the day at a class on speech writing. In-between all of that is many, many phone calls.
I’ll be glad to be back home tonight.
Pray for me, I’m a little tired.
Oregonians know something’s not right. We know the current system of government isn’t working.
Partisanship isn’t doing the job.
The general population grows tired of the whole process.
There are those who, in their frustration, will find a target to blame.
Usually it’s those who disagree with them or don’t see the problems or solutions the same way they see them. So rather than truly listening, they lash out.
Problem with that is many voters, or possible voters, are so sick of complainers, the words, even those that really are good, just slip away. I think history called that the clamoring cymbals.
Oregonians have an uncommon, common sense.
I think they’re ready to use it.
When I was kid my family always visited the cemetery on Memorial Day. It was the one time of year we’d take flowers and place them on the graves of many of my relatives. We stopped doing that when I reached my teenage years.
Now that I’m in my late 40’s, those cemeteries are filled with more people that I knew well. My grandmother, my dad, my uncle, my wife’s mom and dad, her grandfather. I find myself thinking of these people a lot more these days. I don’t know if its age or life or what.
I like the fact that we set aside a day to remember those who not only fought and died for our country, but also for those who fought for us and are no longer here.
I probably won’t get to the cemetery today or even this weekend.
I visit more often than once a year though. Perhaps that’s because the people who are dying now were more intimately connected to me.
Whether we make it to the cemetery really isn’t the point anyway.
The point is to remember.
Not just what they did for us.
But who they were.
What a night. The results are in and it appears we’ll be facing Kate Brown in November. Obama took Oregon and here in Lane County it appears one of our seats on the county commission will go to the General Election and the Eugene Mayors Race looks to be still up in the air.
There’s a lot going on in this election. Now is the time for all of us to get involved. Do we want change? Who can bring it about? And, when you’re talking about change, what kind of change is it we’re looking for? Change for change sake won’t stand the test of time.
We need people in office who will represent people, not a party. We need to stop the partisanship that causes so much gridlock and get something done. It’s your government, what would you like to do?
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