It's strange when you live somewhere for years, change occurs slowly, or at least, if feels that way. When you move away and return a year or two later, the changes you see appear sudden, as if overnight, even though I know that's not how things work. To honor my mom on her birthday, I drove to the Farmington City Cemetery earlier this week. I saw some of those changes.
One change in particular hit close to home...
As in, our former next-door-neighbor.
He's running for city council.
Now, we never really know everything about another family, but the closer they live to you, the more opportunity you have to know as much as possible. Roger and his family moved next door to us years and years ago. I'm actually partially responsible for his family to live next to us. Roger and I used to take public transportation to and from work. Since we both like conversing with strangers, we struck up a friendship. I told him one day that our neighbor was considering selling his house. That night, he drove to our street, spoke with our neighbor, and negotiated a price. The rest is history.
When I saw Roger's name on the city council sign, it put a smile on my face. A finer man you cannot find. If anything, he can be too kind, too good, to the point where it can be off-putting for some. He's now running for office. Many feel there's not enough good people in government, local or otherwise, and that we need more people of substance for those positions. I have my own opinion that government corrupts good people and changes them. I'm sure that's not completely true...it just feels true.
I can no longer vote in their election, though if I could, I would definitely cast my vote for Roger, a man I still call a friend. I'm thankful he's running. I wish other good men and women would run. I have no idea if he'll make it--don't know his odds or have a feel for how he's doing. We'll find out soon enough.
Roger Child, City Councilman...has a nice ring to it.
