Civic Duties

     I voted this week. It was a short ballot—three city council positions with four candidates running—so I brought along my three-year-old grandson Owen so he could watch the proceedings garbed in cold weather jacket and Batman stocking cap.

     After I voted, we walked to the check-out station to turn our, oops my, ballot in. The poll worker saw my grandson coming up and asked him, “What's your name?”

     “Batman,” Owen said matter-of-factly.

      “So you are Batman,” the worker responded. “I may need to see some ID.”

     On the way out, one of the council candidates asked my grandson, “Did you vote?” He quickly responded, “Yes.” Hope Owen's responses don't get me in any trouble with the renewed emphasis on voter fraud. I can see the headline: “Three-year-old who claimed to be Batman may have voted in local election.”

     I endured a more painful civics lesson when I decided to attend a city marijuana forum being conducted, partly to determine if medical marijuana would be sold within city limits. I really didn't care one way or another but saw it as an opportunity to educate myself on the subject.

     So I sat while a number of would-be marijuana distributors, patients and others all spoke, nearly all very much in favor of bringing medical marijuana to town. I sat quietly in back even though some of what was spoken didn't ring quite true to me. Finally, as the discussion moderator asked if there were any more comments or questions, I thought I would throw out a question.

     I tried to ask whether any of these medical marijuana dispensary employees were required to have medical training of any sort. Simple question, I thought. But the discussion moderator said I needed to come up front to ask it after I tried just calling it out from my seat. Not what I intended.

     Now something happened while I was walking up there to the microphone. Maybe my mind was trying to channel Jimmy Stewart in Mr Smith Goes to Washington or something but I felt like I had to do more than ask a simple question. So I complained about the wonderful medical benefits that were ascribed by various speakers to marijuana's properties--somebody even claiming that marijuana cured cancer--then I asked whether any medical training was required to dispense it.

     As they say in court, that just required a yes or no answer. But instead, the folks running the forum, called upon a medical marijuana dispensary operator to answer. In fact, they had him come up next to me on the podium where we had a brief back and forth. Not what I intended.

     To make matters worse, the whole shebang was being recorded to be shown on public access TV. It's on YouTube as well. When I sent the link to my son so he could view it himself, he teased me about it:

“please come to the microphone”

“well, I just had a question”

“sir, please step up to the microphone” HAHA!

     Next time I'll keep my questions to myself. There's no civic duty to make a fool of myself.

     But there is a civic duty to pay taxes, assessments, tolls and the like. I just got notice of a new one this week. From Canada of all places. While driving through Ontario a month ago, we apparently. traveled on a toll road. I got a chuckle out of the bill--$13.64 for toll charge, $1 for trip toll charge (how'd they know this was a trip), $4.20 for the camera charge (obviously that photographer is overpaid if he's getting paid by the photo) and $3.95 account fee.

     Bound by civic duty, however, we were prepared to send a check. But that wasn't a payment option. Don't they take checks in Canada anymore? They wanted you to sign onto a computer and pay by credit card. But what if I don't have a computer? What if I don't have a credit card? My parents don't.

     Ah, there is another solution. Drive to Woodbridge, Canada (wherever that is)  and pay in person. Monday through Friday between 8:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. And probably incur more toll charges along the way.