Years ago I was one of the Republican councilmen in Magnolia. Then I was the Republican Municipal Chairman. Then I ran for Mayor, very briefly, until my involvement as an attorney in a complex case in Superior Court in Camden forced me out.
Though I regard myself as a conservative Republican, I never got along well with the other folks on our side. Politics was filled with way too much pettiness and self-aggrandizing. I was falsely accused by the Magnolia Rumor Mill of bedding a Republican Mayor's daughter. (Several Republicans were.) The Republicans who got me involved just wanted me to keep my mouth shut and obey orders -- something I never did. When I discovered a very subtle and non-prosecutable form of indirect theft by our side, and disclosed it instantly to the Mayor, someone went and changed the written record of the vote I had cast to block such theft so that it looked like I had cast a vote in favor of such theft. Disgusted, I secretly had the Borough Clerk, who was also offended at the record alteration, let me make a copy of the TAPE RECORDING of that session of Council, so that I could prove that the official record had been altered. Someone -- I don't know who, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was one of the hate-filled lunatics on our side of the aisle -- called my name in to the IRS three years in a row, to use the IRS as a tool of terror. I was audited three years in a row. After the first year, I OVERPAID MY TAXES and UNDER-REPORTED MY DEDUCTIONS on purpose, so that the IRS would lose money if I was audited again. When that happened in the second year, when I was called-in for an audit for the third year, the auditor said, "Are we going to be returning money to you again?" I said, "Yup!" and they shook my hand and told me to go home. "Somebody hates you," the auditor said.
Ultimately, I was glad to get out of politics. Like my Dad always said, "Pete, politics is evil in motion." He was right.
While I was the Republican Chairman, my wife would help me throw pre-election events by making one of everyone's favorite treats, veggie pizza.
My wife Rise` would spread crescent roll dough flat on a cookie sheet, bake it, spread a cream cheese concoction over it, and then spread a variety of nutritious cut-up vegetables across the cream cheese.
On one occasion, Rise` had just spread the cream cheese over the baked dough. The uncovered cream-cheese-covered pizza and the uncovered cream-cheese-mix mixing bowl were next to each other, when the mail came and Rise` and I were distracted by sorting through the mail on the other side of the kitchen.
Now we had a cat in those days -- an extremely intelligent black-and-white cat named Inky.
Inky simply NEVER misbehaved, except on this one particular day. When we turned from the mail and looked back toward the veggie pizza, there was Inky on the counter, next to the veggie pizza and cream cheese bowl, with cream cheese on her mouth.
Rise` and I both thought exactly the same thing: "Oh, no! Where did Inky lick cream cheese? In the bowl, or on the cheese pizza itself?" We looked hard, but we couldn't see a distinct point of disturbance on either the pizza or bowl. "What should we do?" we wondered.
Then Rise and I looked at each other, and each burst out laughing at the other's thoughts.
Sad what politics and power does to some folks, but what a lovely memory to close it out with.
ReplyDeleteWhat I didn't reveal, on purpose, is whether we actually fed them the Republicans the veggie pizza which Inky licked.
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