Level of Involvement

Over the course of our acquaintance, I'm pretty sure I've mentioned I'm not much of a joiner.Even if it somehow hasn't come up, I'm sure it's somehow became apparent. There are certain qualities I seem to exude, and not being particularly interested in whether or not I'm part of something is supposedly one of them.

And yes, it's true, I've been known to land myself in situations under the auspice of shutting someone up. My stint with vampire caste, down below, and ending up the historical society's board are shinning examples of this. Perhaps I am given to just a little curiosity, if not outright hypocrisy. After all, those experiences did provide me with memories, stories, and things I might not have exposed myself to otherwise, and maybe I should at least be a little grateful for that.

By virtue of what I do for money I have found myself a little more involved with historic preservation, and, sickeningly enough, local politics than I anticipated. There's a joke around where I live, you end up serving as Lord Mayor or on the Board of Trusties by virtue of eventually it becomes your turn. Anytime this has been brought up around me I tend to snarl.

"My grandparents were the politicians," I'll say, and leave it at that.

I do vote, for that was the way I was raised, and I do keep myself informed because that is, to my mind, something a thinking person does. But that's about it. I'm not given to going to rallies or wearing a candidate's button because that seems like an awful lot of commitment, which could border upon lynch mob mentality if the conditions are just right. 

Yet my level of involvement seems to be becoming a little more than just being a perpetual watcher, and I am quiet unsure how to approach the subject...

The next time the sun rises, our funky little mountain hamlet will be holding its civil elections. In a township of two-hundred, not including drop-ins, dogs, and ground squirrels, this may not sound terribly impressive, and, depending on the level of small-town intrigue, it isn't. Still, someone needs to help count ballots.

How my name got brought up, when I first spoken to about it, or what motivated me to say sure have slipped my mind. But there it is; my name's listed in the election as one of the judges. Perhaps, back in the antiquity of the mining days, such a position might have been a little more glamorous. As it stands, I figure I'll be finishing up reading Tarzan between the occasional bits of small town civilities.

Part of me wonders how my grandparents would've taken this, knowing this about as political as I intend to get? I could speculate, but then again, I'm sure it's come up over the course of our acquaintance that I think it's vanity to second-guess the dead. Not that it matters; I might collect a story and expose myself to something I might not have otherwise, and maybe I should be grateful for that.