Can you please some of the people ...

You may be surprised to learn that once upon a time I was a sensitive person who really wanted to please everyone. Yup ... me!

I tried to be A Nice Person; I figured that way everyone would like me. I could never figure out why it never made me Homecoming Queen. It rarely got me any new friends. And it didn’t make me the World’s Best Mom, either. That was before I was old enough to know better.

About 10 or 15 years ago, I grew up. I think it was at about the time I got more involved in the newspaper. Maybe it was when my kids were teenagers. Or both. Whatever … it was then that I realized that no matter what you do, or how good your intentions are, not everyone will appreciate it.

To paraphrase P.T. Barnum (or Abraham Lincoln, depending on whom you ask), “You can please some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can never please all of the people all of the time.” Since no one seems to agree upon who first said it this way, I’ve decided to credit it to myself. And if you don’t like that … oh, well.

In my foray into the world of journalism, I quickly learned the truth of this proverb. Some people liked me because they liked the newspaper. Other people didn’t like me because they didn’t like the newspaper’s owner. When the ownership changed, people who didn’t like me before suddenly thought I was great; while those who had liked me before were suspicious of my changing alliances. See? I couldn’t make anyone totally happy.

As I tried desperately to do everything right and keep everyone contented, I found out I was still making some people mad. Who knew?  Finally, I understood that people who knew me would decide for themselves. And those who didn’t know me could make up their own minds too. That’s when I figured out that the only person I really had to make happy was … me.

Time went on and I once again changed allegiances. I found myself in a new place where I could make both friends and enemies: Manchester Village Council.

For the first several months of my term as a council trustee, I didn’t mind asking “stupid” questions.  I was the new kid on the block, and I’d been thrown into the lion’s den due to the resignation of a former council member. I did ask my share of dumb questions (and as much as some people will tell you that there is no such thing, I can assure you that there are indeed “dumb questions.”) Now, in my third year on council, I am starting to feel like I know my way around, at least a little bit. I’m also starting to speak my mind … and maybe I do that a little too often.

As I said, I’ve found that I’ll never please everyone, so I might as well say what I’m thinking … whether or not it gets me in trouble. Look: I’m not a Manchester Girl. I wasn’t born here. I don’t have generations of relatives who live here. But the reason I wanted to be on council was because I really care about what happens in the community that I adopted as “home” almost 40 years ago.

Sometimes, I wonder what I signed up for. I’ve certainly heard plenty of people’s opinions on things that are on the village docket … as well as things that are only rumored to be on the docket. Either way, I’m actually happy to hear the opinions of village residents that I was elected to represent.  I decided early on that even if I was the only person who voted a certain way, and even if it didn’t really make a difference, I was going to stick to my guns. One time over the past three years I didn’t vote my conscience and I still regret it. I won’t do that again; I promise. But I have made some motions and/or voted with the majority on several occasions that haven’t been entirely popular. And, in response to that, I will only say this: Village Council is not a popularity contest.

I don’t vote a certain way because I like people. Or because I don’t. I will, however, always try to vote according to what seems to be best for the entire community, whether or not it seems best for you, or even for me. And whether or not it is the most popular opinion in town. And nothing other than my own conscience is going to influence how I vote.

This is not a campaign speech. I’m not up for re-election this fall (although some of my fellow council members will be). You’ve got a couple more years to deal with me—and to hold me accountable for what I’ve written in this article.

I won’t always agree with you, and I don’t imagine that you’ll always agree with me. But I hope we can still see each other on Main Street, or Adrian Street, or City Road … and find our common ground somewhere in the middle. 

IDK what this world is coming 2. How bout U?

Once upon a time, my post-office box was the center of my world. Or close to it, anyway.

For years, the highlight of my day was to walk two blocks to the local post office and pick up The Mail. We didn't have door-to-door mail in such close proximity to the post office, so we've had the same box number for almost 40 years now. It's small town living at its best.

In our old post office, we had quaint little metal-and-glass boxes with lettered combinations. I still remember the combination to my old box: You'd turn the dial right to AB; left to DE; and then stop again at I to the right. It was simple and straightforward. You could stop at the post office on your way somewhere else or while you were out pushing the kids around in the stroller. If you had questions, or needed something weighed, or wanted to buy postage stamps, you could go to the desk and talk to the quaint little postmaster, Mr. Kirk. He was awfully cute. He acted stern, but eventually you realized that his stolid face was often hiding a wry sense of humor.

Several years ago, the post office moved to "new-and-improved" quarters just one block away from our house. I'm sure it was a good thing for the post office. It wasn't always so good for me. By this time, Mr. Kirk had retired. The new postmaster wasn't hiding anything (especially not a sense of humor)--what you saw was what you got. In little old Manchester we started to understand the meaning of "going postal." It was no longer as much fun to go inside and buy postage stamps, but that was OK because you could now buy them from a little machine that spit out one stamp at a time, and sometimes even spit out one-cent stamps in "change." The kids loved that. If you wanted something weighed you hoped that the postmaster would stay in his office and that Skip or Frances would help you out.

Worse, however, was that our awesome little combination lock boxes were deemed "old-fashioned" and had been discarded. Now we all had plain, ugly boxes, that were opened with keys (which you could obtain for a fee). And we weren't allowed to forget them at home. There was no glass in the box, so you had to open it up to see if there was anything inside. My mail started piling up in the box because I could never remember to take the key when I went out for a walk.

Still, I loved the days that I remembered the key and could pick up The Mail. I never knew what kind of neat surprises my mailbox would hold. Sure, there were bills; but there might also be a nice, long, letter from the friend that I'd met in fourth grade in New Jersey. Or family members from far away. There might even be a package once in a while.

Slowly, however, The Mail was mostly just bills. And junk. People I knew were starting to communicate electronically, so my allegiance eventually turned to email. I started gathering email addresses from my friends and we could chat happily and cheaply. I joined some email lists as my realm of friends broadened out. We poured out our hearts from our computers to folks we'd never actually met in person. But you know what, I couldn't wait to log on and see who I heard from next.

Then, there was Facebook. The friend who invited me apologized for "luring me into this evil world." Uh-huh. Well, it's OK. I have gotten over Facebook a couple of times. And I'm back again. However, it now seems to have overtaken email. Seemingly, it's easier to tell the world that you have to go to the bathroom than to just walk away from your computer and come back in a few minutes to finish reading ... or writing. It's faster to just click "like" on someone's status than to actually respond to them via a private message. I still check in on people, but I will confess that it is probably more because I'm nosy than truly concerned.

And, of course, if you're posting from your phone, which you can use for texting, updating your facebook status, sending an email, and "tweeting" your 140 characters on Twitter, you are making all sorts of little abbreviations to shorten up your message. Because let me tell you--it is a HUGE pain to send messages from your cell phone. At least it is from mine.

So instead of getting some satisfying letters, cards, and/or juicy information via mail or email from our friends (which is a term used somewhat loosely in Facebook-land), we are now getting stupid, often meaningless, updates from those dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of friends/acquaintances/contacts. It's overwhelming. And not very personal.

Email has pretty much been relegated to sending "forwards" (the electronic version of junk mail) that tell you to send it to everyone in your address book, so you have to scroll down through the names and addresses of everyone in everyone else's address book that's gone before you. It's crazy. And half the time, by the time you get to the actual message, something has convoluted it and it's either there in duplicate (it's kind of like the email version of carbon paper) or it's disappeared entirely into some kind of an .html attachment that you don't know if you should open for fear of getting the newest virus hatched by some hacker in India who has nothing better to do while answering your phone calls for tech support.

Quite succinctly--I need to get back to some simpler ways of staying in contact with the people I really care about. I think I'm going to start using my cell phone for what God intended it to do--talking. What a concept.