town meeting

There was a special town meeting held tonight, to vote for (among other things) the control of all egg-bearing fowl in the town. Someone brought up wild turkeys, and the point was made that it was impossible. And someone else added, why can't neighbors get along? A third party chimed in about prized dogs, euthanasia, and rampant chickens. I had to smile. This is a small town. Emphasize each word in the preceding paragraph, one at a time, and the idea is very clear.

People came in work boots, slippers, fancy sandals, water shoes. Most people were working people with one, two--perhaps three residents of leisure, and few of considerable age.

There was a lengthy and heated debate about the closing of the roads for winter maintenance, with one gentleman, one of leisure may I add, insisted that the statute stated on the warrant was not the way it was written by law and therefore the whole process was illegal! He read a lot of information from an informational letter he sent to the selectmen earlier in the year. The moderator told him to wrap it up. The discussion meandered and several voices were heard, with the heart of the debate eventually centering on what kind of truck was capable of actually plowing the road in question, and several people volunteering the make and model of their plow trucks, to prove a point. Everyone was heard. One very sage man asked: if we close the roads until April 30 to avoid plowing, what will happens when it snows in May? And everyone pondered that for a bit.

The flood plain ordinance was another hot topic. My favorite moment was when an elected official said "tropigraphical".

What else, what else?

I was ballot clerk. I took roll. We had sixty voters before several stormed out--the road closings were a bone of contention for the 9 souls living on it and 5 of them left after the road was closed from November 1 until April 30 for ten years. I counted hands, and tried not to laugh in the front of the room, when people said their piece, and the moderator banged his gavel. The poultry ordinance and everything else...the real people running a real town next to a real loud rushing river in a schoolhouse older than school I work in a town named after a poet...

I almost forgot article 2. The outhouse. The town outhouse was no longer being maintained by a grant in Rangeley, this being a scenic route, and there was an motion to raise $800 to keep it clean. Someone suggested a coin operated outhouse. I just about died, and we were only ten minutes in. Someone else guffawed loudly and said, just lock it. My mental state said, just go outside. And then I thought about the crews of Harleys that park and sit by the river. And I voted to raise the money, as did most everyone. It seemed a very wise idea.