As is true with many adult obligations, I find Annual Town
Meeting to be a little tedious. But I try to show up anyway. And as is also
true in quite a lot of situations I encounter day in and day out in adult life,
at Town Meeting, everyone else seems smarter and more well-versed on the issues
than I am, and everyone clearly has better-formed opinions.
But I try to show up anyway. And like just about everything
that gets scheduled after 4 p.m. these days, when it comes time to get ready to
go, I’d much rather stay home.
But much of democracy – yet again, like much of adulthood --
is about showing up and putting in your time trying to be a useful participant.
The reality is that I’m not much good when it comes to influencing opinion or
offering insights into complicated municipal issues, whether it’s what to do
about a historic and beautiful but dysfunctional town building or whether
affordable housing would be better suited to the edge of a soccer field or a
quiet thickly wooded neighborhood.
So I do what I can. As a designated Town Meeting officer, I get
to register people as they arrive and hand out copies of the warrant booklet. I
greet them and tell them where their spouses have saved seats for them. Mostly,
I thank them for taking the time to be there. Because I may not have many
insights on how to best run the town, but fortunately, lots of other people do.
There’s a popular dichotomy that divides up those who lead
and those who follow. I always feel there should be a third category, perhaps
not as valuable as the leaders but not without value, either: those who report.
My vocation, my core competency, and, I sometimes feel, my only useful skill in
life, is to communicate what’s going on to other people. That’s why I’m a
journalist, and that may be the best purpose I can serve at Town Meeting or
just about anywhere else.
I’m neither much of a leader nor a follower, but if I
can help people to better understand what the leaders have executed and what
the followers have complied with -- and if I can be present to bear witness to how it all unfolded -- I like to think I’m serving some small
purpose.
