Smyrna / Smyrna Mills

First, at the general store and then the produce market, the dim light the interior required some readjustment for us. We expect electrical illumination, after all. Instead, this was truly natural, apart from a few white-gas lanterns.

What we’re used to is like the sun came indoors, even the first 30-watt bulb in a store.

Or so my brilliant travel companion observed.

~*~

Light brown Amish
sheds, barns, homes
the men with mustaches!

~*~

As we’re backing out of the parking
two Amish kids
stare at me through a window in a door
but don’t respond to my wave:

Did I look like I belonged to another Plain people?

Maybe from somewhere in space?

Even though I was driving a simple white car?

Election reflections

These shoulder elections, where nobody’s running for national office, are still important.

In small places like Eastport, getting someone to run even unopposed for local office can be a challenge. We had all the bases covered, although the surprise was when a write-in candidate won one of the two city council seats.

I can’t imagine that happening in a bigger setting, but who knows. A write-in for president? My!

Statewide, a radical proposal to take over the two widely hated electrical utilities failed. Big money is hard to comprehend, even if we’ll be paying it one way or the other. The frequent storm outages won’t be going away, nor will the continuing higher-than-national bills customers here receive. Somehow, I don’t think the issue will be going away, despite the lopsided tallies.

Just how much do those emergency home generators cost altogether, anyway, as insurance against the current setup? It’s not that many households before we’re talking billions.

Otherwise, the initiatives moved in a progressive direction, including the right-to-repair measure.

I am relieve to see opportunities for right and left to come together at a local level, however gingerly.