[Magdalen] Small-town politics bringing out the worst.

[Sibyl Smirl]

Yeah.  Somebody tell me about small-town (or rural) politics.  My cousin 
had an interesting experience once.  She was the long-time adult only 
child daughter of the sheriff, pillar of the church, non-smoking, 
non-drinking married mother of two, totally straight-arrow (unlike me, 
who smelled like hippie non-conformist and worse).  One day she ran into 
a woman she knew who began sympathetically asking her how her 
(non-existent) sister was doing.  She was in the conversation for a 
while, and they figured out that the woman had heard, from several 
sources, stories about the sheriff's crazy druggie excon who-knows-what 
daughter.  The friend knew that Jeanine was the sheriff's daughter, and 
KNEW that she didn't fit that description, so she must have a 
ne'er-do-well sister!  Somebody had to start those stories deliberately 
as election propaganda.

Then there was a time much later when I was scared a bit spitless, 
driving my daughter home from her ballet lesson after dark.  Just after 
going through a small town between my small town and Joplin, I got a 
pair of very bright bright headlights in my rear-view mirror.  I sped up 
to the limit to get away from them, and he stayed right on my bumper, 
then slowed way down and moved to the right shoulder wanting him to 
pass.  No dice: he just stayed right on my bumper.  So I thought 
"stalker", being a young woman with a little girl with me.  Repeated the 
procedure a couple of times.  Got into my own town, furiously thinking, 
and decided rather than pulling into my drive, to go around the loop at 
the church, and if he followed me in through there, to head for 
Columbus, another seven miles, go into the parking lot at the courthouse 
(where the sheriff's office was), and lean on the horn.  However, before 
getting to the church, got a beep of siren and flashing red-and-blue 
from behind me.  Okay.  The officer (sheriff, whom I knew) said that he 
wanted to check on me, because I was driving weird.  That was actually a 
great relief, of course.  That @^#$$^! had been my uncle's deputy.  He 
was harassing my bumper sticker for his last opponent, and he knew damn 
well who I was, because you know he'd been on the radio with my license 
number.  I was just glad I hadn't sped up PAST the limit trying to get 
away from his brights!


-- 
Sibyl Smirl
I will take no bull from your house!  Psalms 50:9a
mailto:polycarpa3 at ckt.net