We Always Have Been Among the Silent

Hubby and I have voted in every national, state, and local election since we were old enough to vote, but recently politics has taken a more interesting turn for us. We have become very interested in our little rural town's local politics, and we've been going to all the Council meetings for quite some time. Our town is in the process of adopting a zoning plan that will give the town a way to control what type of construction can be built in the different areas of town. There have been plenty of opportunities of people to ask questions, plus everyone who already owns land in our town is grandfathered, unless they change the use of their land.

The reason all this has suddenly become of such interest is that our sleepy little town has been "invaded" by a large corporation named White Rock that has bought up a large tract of land with the intention of putting a rock quarry there. They have had several very fancy public meetings trying to convince the citizens here that the quarry will be good for us. Citizens who do not agree that the quarry would be a positive change have also organized and met frequently. And we're going to all the meetings.

We tried to keep an open mind at first about whether the quarry would be a good thing, but the more we know about the problems that quarries cause, the more we are against it. We even have a sign in our yard in protest. This is entirely out of our normal response to anything pertaining to politics. Mostly we've just voted and gone about our business, part of the Silent Majority.

It's a shame it took something that is causing this much furor in our little town to get us to become active in civic affairs. Somehow there was never time or interest before these last few years of our retirement. We were too busy being caregivers to our parents for a long time to have the time or energy to become involved. But that doesn't excuse all the other years that we should have been more involved in the political arena.

I guess you can teach an old dog new tricks after all. Here we are in our 60's doing what we should have been doing all along. Better late than never, I guess.