The Sneeze

02/17/2025 by Pat Shiplett 5 Comments

People at a coffee shopIt’s amazing how many friendships at our coffee shop start with an orgasm.It’s not that the people working in the windows are unfriendly. It’s just that they’re busy.

Some are working remotely on an employer’s clock, some on projects with impossible due dates. The PhDs are frantic.

You can spend weeks without sharing the first word with a stranger next to you. Then the unexpected happens, the unspoken code of silence is broken by a sudden sneeze.

That convulsion is greeted with a ‘bless you’ or another expression of ‘good health.’ Once those words are uttered you and the stranger are on limited speaking terms.

Weeks pass. You may ask to plug in your power adapter or briefly, very briefly, compare laptop devices. But after time the question will inevitably be breached: “What are you working on?”

Now you’re discussing careers, childhood foibles, allergies to synthetics fabrics. You’re sharing photos of pets.

There are myths aplenty about sneezing: It’s as close as you can get to death. Cupid’s sneezes shape the course of love. Someone is gossiping about you. It’s an orgasm, or is it?

Unlike the sneeze, the hiccup is greeted with silent bemusement in the windows of our coffee shop. Flatulence is discouraged.

Jeff Boarini

01/28/2025 by Pat Shiplett Leave a Comment

People at a coffee shopJeff came through the door of the coffee shop with a fire in his belly.He’s running to be mayor for our small suburban town. The folks at our coffee shop applaud his decision, his neighbors are grateful.

It’s good to have at least one candidate sign up to challenge an incumbent. Issues are raised that might otherwise stay under the radar.

Jeff Boarini has never before run for elected office but here he is, an underdog, squaring off against a sitting mayor who easily won his last election and enjoys a serious funding advantage.

The village is debating fundamental questions about its future. Should it preserve the home-town feel of a vintage village? Or become more urban, like the first-tier metropolis it borders?

Jeff would like more information on how population growth and increased density are in the city’s best interest; and how they would create the affordable housing they are hoped to provide.

A city government, he believes. must adopt a budget it can live with long term, a financial plan its residents can afford.

During his professional career he was charged with keeping projects on budget and deadlines on track. But he’s aware that a city mayor carries much more than fiscal responsibilities.

As a recent widower and a father caring for an son with cerebral palsy, he’s learned first hand and knows better than most people that government exists to respond to the needs of its residents.

Whether win or lose, the fact that Jeff has stepped up to challenge the status quo is an uncommon service to his community.

Daniel Biss

01/27/2025 by Pat Shiplett 1 Comment

People at a coffee shop Daniel Biss is campaigning to serve a second term as a “weak mayor.”The term “weak mayor” has nothing do with the character of the person holding that office.

It’s part of the system in which a mayor shares responsibilities with a city manager. The mayor’s job is part-time and not well paid considering its importance. The power to officiate at weddings and attend the swearing in of police officers offers some compensation.

Daniel’s interest in public service began with political organizing, which led him to serve 8 years in the state legislature. In 2021 he became mayor of the city where he and his wife are raising their children.

His reelection campaign is based on a “bold and progressive” agenda. He’s searching for consensus on a long-term vision to guide the city, reading the pulse of 78,000 residents each step of the way.

Like communities across the country, his town is grappling with the issue of affordable housing. Will expanding supply make a difference? Will greater density energize economic development and moderate pressure on taxpayers?

Daniel believes climate-change mitigation and sustainability are challenges cities can’t afford to ignore. He believes there is an overdue responsibility to reckon with inequity.

These goals are possible to achieve only by building consensus among members of a city council, committees and their staff. This is work that can try a soul to its limit.

It takes a strong person to be a “weak mayor.”

Gennifer Geer

01/01/2025 by Pat Shiplett 1 Comment

People at a coffee shopGennifer takes the plunge.

Like people everywhere, the crowd at our corner coffee shop likes to complain. Why don’t “they” do something about the potholes, economic development, residential density, etc. etc.

Well, at least one person among us has decided to do something about things. It’s possible she will become one of the “theys” we wag our fingers at.

Even in a well-mannered suburban village, running for elected office is not for the faint of heart. The first step is getting on the ballot.

Gennifer Geer secured nearly double the signatures needed to qualify by sharing her vision for the city. And as she listens her ideas will evolve.

If elected, she would represent around 8,600 residents in a ward of mostly historic homes and apartments dating back to the Civil War.

The retirement of a seven-term council member offers an opportunity to explore new ideas and to evaluate old ones long on the books. A previous city council, for example, proclaimed the village to be a “nuclear-free zone.”

Gennifer advocates for fiscal sobriety, green spaces, bike lanes and charging stations. She thinks participatory budgeting and rank-choice voting offer promise.

She jokes that running for office has made her more visible and that she’ll be staying on her “best behavior.” When public hearings drag on past midnight – and speakers blow past their allotted minutes – a easy sense of humor like hers is a point of survival.

You may want to stop in and share a cup of coffee. The candidate’s more than little interesting and she may soon be the “they’ you’ll call when that downed tree is still blocking your back alleyway.

No Santa, “The Talk”

12/19/2024 by Pat Shiplett 2 Comments

She had hoped her older sons would do the dirty work she’d put off doing since last Christmas.Each year the mother of three decorated her house, set out a manger, baked cookies. There was a feast that ended with plum pudding.

Year after year, those holiday obligations fell upon her alone.

Yet there was one particular chore she had avoided: telling the baby of the family that she’d been lying about Santa Claus.

He’d heard the rumors on the playground, of course, but refused to listen. He had a lot invested in whole North Pole and reindeer thing.

Leading up to the holidays each year, he would make a point of turning conspicuously good – good for goodness sake. His wish list to Santa grew exponentially.

Now seventy-two years later, he still recalls exactly when and where “The Talk” took place.

His mother picked him from school to get new shoes and then an ice cream at the drug store. She’d parked the Plymouth in a metered space just off the main drag.

She lit a cigarette, and there was no hiding the facial tic she suffered when she was nervous. She proceeded to tie herself in knots trying to explain why and how the truth can be “fudged” without it being a sin.

He embraced his mother’s explanation without question and then later went on to pursue a career in advertising.

That Christmas Eve, Mary and George Funk came over from next door, and as always they brought the expensive boxed chocolates people without kids have laying around the house. He called first dibs on the ones with nuts.

“The Christmas Carol” came on at 10 p.m. and the boy was allowed to stay up with the adults to watch it to the end. He curled up on the couch next his mom who, for whatever reason, fell asleep during the opening title. He would fill her in on what she’d missed the next morning.