“Duncan’s already had two terms in office, long enough to do big damage to the city’s finances. It’s going to take some heavy lifting to turn things around for us.”
I cut her off in the middle of her fear-mongering. She couldn’t get the simplest of facts straight. Duncan was in the running for his third term, not his second.
“No. Sorry. I’m not willing to discuss my politics with you.”
I smiled but grit my teeth as I began to close the wooden inner door, which still did nothing to stop her. She simply raised her voice.
“We can drive you to the polls!”
“No, thanks,” I returned, as I pushed the heavy wooden door shut.
Turning back to the kitchen, I sat to finish my coffee and toast, wishing I could be a fly on the wall when she opened her newspaper later today to see an article on the latest Mayor’s Pick. I was pretty sure she’d be surprised if she noticed that I was one of the artists he had picked this year. I held one side of the certificate Duncan presented when the photographer snapped his picture at City Hall yesterday. Of course, he’d taken pictures of all of The Mayor’s Picks, and a group shot. Who could tell which photograph would be chosen by the paper?
Still, my novel had won the Governor General’s Award last year, and that notoriety for my writing brought considerable attention to our beautiful little city on the lake. Attention in the newspapers was good for the tourist market, especially if newspapers in other places picked up the news. During my book tour, the Q & A sessions always collected one or two questions about the place where I lived and wrote, and how this city with its long beaches and tree-lined streets had inspired me to write. So I thought there was a good chance that this would bring me extra attention in the piece the journalist wrote.
Yet, who knows? Maybe that woman simply didn’t read literature or newspapers. Some people hold themselves to a very narrow view of what’s good for a community, focusing only on the part of the economy that is wrapped around making big money and jobs, never recognizing the good that is done for everyone through barter and trade, the gig economy, or volunteerism. Those people would never realize the power that artists have to promote different points of view, to spark multiple visions of how things can be done well in human communities, to articulate how the diversification of human energies functions in a healthy community.
I walked to the front door again, gazing out the window. The canvasser was across the street, at Mrs. Forester’s front door now. That poor woman had just lost her husband to an accident at his place of employment. She didn’t need to be bothered by this sort of thing. I almost opened the door to call out to her, to intervene. However, as I put my hand on the door knob, the canvasser gave up her knocking and moved on.
I saw the older gentleman who pulled his wagon of newspapers up to the house next door to Mrs. Forester’s then. He nodded hello to the woman as she passed him. I guessed that he was wondering who she was, because he knew pretty much everyone in this neighbourhood. He and I frequently had friendly chats as I was weeding the garden in the summer. The old man stopped at every home on the opposite side of the street, putting a copy of the local newspaper, folded in three, into each mailbox. Soon he would get to the end of the street, cross over, and deliver to this side of the road. I only had to wait for my copy to be delivered.
