Goodbye and Thanks For All the Fishes

It's 8:00 P.M. in the East, and the polls are now closed. For better or for worse, the votes are in and shortly we'll have nominees for four school board and four borough council positions, and the mayor's job.

Which direction did Morrisville move in? I don't know yet.

There's never a good time to say goodbye, but that time is here for me. After nineteen months of daily blogging on the political misadventures of tiny Morrisville Borough, Pennsylvania, it's time to hang up the digital quill pen. I'll probably post some responses and comments to this post, but this is the last post on Save The Morrisville School. The blog will remain for a time for research and reference.

Before anyone tries to tie my departure to the election results, stop. This decision was made long ago, before our deadbeat government was discovered, before the 2009 electoral silly season went into overdrive, and before the six point plan was exposed as a fraud and scam. It's just a good time to go, no matter who might win.

I remember when Gary Larson and Bill Watterson retired "The Far Side" and "Calvin and Hobbes" and how much I would miss them.

That was before I found how hard it is to keep writing going on a daily basis. Sometimes our friends on the "Stop the School" "Stay on Track" side would provide hours and hours of entertainment just by opening their mouth. Most times, they were silent, and I relied on posts and articles culled from a lot of internet time.

I hear the cheering coming from the secret meeting hideout where the Holy Morrisville Tell All Manuscript is locked away and decisions are made out of the public eye. The hot tub will have extra bubbles and champagne tonight, and the accounting emporium will gleefully declare an extra dividend. I understand that and I accept it. I also know a day will come when their electoral defeat and departure from the Morrisville political scene will be equally cheered. I hope that time starts tonight.

While I do not want this to be an Academy Award winning "thank you" speech, quite a number of people need to be thanked.

For those of you who have read this blog faithfully and contributed, both in agreement and disagreement, I thank you. Without you, this would have been just an exercise in expository writing. I do not have all the answers. You do not either. But together, WE can find the answers.

For those of you who were silent readers, I thank you too. Discounting people who stumbled onto this little slice of cyberspace and backed out, this site was visited by people in 47 countries outside of the USA. All fifty states are represented. Fourteen state departments of education read regularly as well as the federal DOE. I am humbled by the amount of time these distant friends spent here and the number of pages viewed.

Some friends in Greenland, Arkansas visited regularly. I truly wish them well on their journey through state takeover and rehabilitation. They have responded to their emergency with a communal pulling together to save their school system. If only Morrisville could somehow profit from their example.

I thank the Bucks County Courier Times, whose work I clearly credited, but liberally quoted. I suspect that they gained just as much from my frequent reposting of their articles as I did.

I thank Manasee Wagh, Kate Fratti, and the other BCCT reporters and columnists who stopped by to experience the Wednesday Night Follies on Palmer Avenue and then write about the frustrations they saw firsthand.

I thank the late Ed Frankenfield, who showed us all what a servant leader is. Well done, sir. Well done.

I thank the administration, teachers, and staff of the Morrisville School District. Without you, the future leaders of tomorrow could not be trained today. Time after time, you have found an empty pot of gold at the end of the rainbow and somehow wrung out one more "do more with less" moment. They may be our children, but you have proven time after time that they are your children too.

I mentioned Gary Larson and Bill Watterston earlier. Their original work is gone, but a host of works that were inspired by that original work live on today.

That's what I'm going to ask of you: It's time for you to get involved.

The shenanigans chronicled in these pages can only occur when you stand aside indifferently and let them occur. That's where you come in.

Find out what your school board does. Find out what your borough council does. They are the ones who set the town's priorities and direction, and your taxes. They're not unchallengeable gods just because they sit up there. They're just neighbors of yours. They take out the garbage, shop at Acme, and occasionally even pay their taxes.

Don't stop there. You have three Bucks County commissioners in Doylestown. You have a state representative, a state senator, and a governor in Harrisburg. The issues get larger and more complex here, but these are just more neighbors.

Don't stop there. You have one U.S. Representative and two U.S. Senators in Washington, along with a skinny kid with a funny name in the White House.

They ALL work for YOU. It's not the other way around.

Stop and read that again, this time out loud: They work for ME, not the other way around.

Empowering, isn't it?

They are just like the plumber, carpenter, or painter that you hired to redo the house. If the job was not acceptable, you would complain, right?

Mark Twain said it best: “Politicians are like diapers. They both need changing regularly and for the same reason.”

Challenge them early and consistently. That also means that you need to learn about the issues as well. Politicians who rely on lies and misdirection also rely on a poorly informed or indifferent electorate. Make the effort to find out if they're lying or telling the truth. After a while you can spot the lies while the words are still forming on their lips.

Attend the council or board meetings. Maybe you can watch them on the cable channels to get an idea of what the hot button issues are before you actually go down to Union Street or Palmer Avenue.

Stand up and express your opinion. You don't have to be a Churchillian speaker. Just plain folks do pretty well too. Write out what you want to say beforehand and read it.

Call your elected official's office and tell them what you're thinking. Check their website and send them an email. With the internet, there's no reason for not keeping in touch with them.

Hold them to their promises. Just because you've always voted Republican or Democratic, that doesn't mean you need to continue to. If that official you gave your vote to last time disappointed you, you are not obliged to vote for them again. In fact, you're obliged to vote AGAINST them.

It's been more fun than not. I've enjoyed this journey with you.

Until we meet again, may the road rise to meet you. May the wind be at your back. May the sun shine warm upon your face, the rains fall soft upon your fields and, until we meet again, may God hold you in the palm of His hand.