Being willing to lose

For the past week I’ve had a post-it note on my keyboard with the phrase “Being willing to lose” stuck to it. It is one of dozens of posts I’ve not posted as I begin turning my attention to my new postschool board life. I’m in the state of metamorphosis and so are my eight loyal readers. My Anti Trump rants seem to have have cost me two regulars who no longer write to challenge or debate me. They’ve gone to their own silos. But others have discovered my blog. A month after the election with very little being posted I’m still averaging 400 peeks a day. That’s a rough doubling from the pre-election numbers.

By the way, its 3 AM. I’ve been sleeping poorly of late and I think its because I haven’t been posting. Spending an hour or two during the day emptying my head onto the Internet seems to let me sleep through the night. Therefore, not blogging about the School Board or the titanic national political climate has been a poor option for me. I need the sleep if for no other reason than to fend off dementia. Look what the absence of sleep has done for our President!

I recycled a file cabinet’s worth of School Board meeting books yesterday. It felt good if not quite final. I’m keeping that campaign account open for two years from now and have even disclosed that fact to Claudia. “Why would you want to run again?” she asked me. That’s a good question that I’ll answer in a couple years if I still have that burr under my saddle.

I’ve stuck all the remaining School Board related materials in one corner of my office to sort through. I still owe the public and our CFO’s executive secretary one last campaign finance report. She gently warned me I was late with it a couple days ago. It was due December 7th. She also told me that not turning it in put my status as her favorite school board member in jeopardy. I’ve told her before that I suspect she says the same thing to all the other school board members – about my being her favorite. As for the current delay I explained that this date has long been noted as a “Day of Infamy.”

Other than stewing about the world’s, and the school district’s problems at night I’ve thoroughly enjoyed my pending status as a free man. I just started my third holiday jigsaw puzzle. I’ve decorated the house for Christmas. I’ve made more time for my grandsons. I’ve made my lawn ready for Winter. I’ve been reading books and the New York Times. And, I’ve decided to take up French. Now that I’m free from the school board I intend to write about my Grandfather a century after his militarily service in France. Claudia and I have begun looking at trips we might take to Ooh La La land. I’ve found it very easy to get lost in the French language App Duolingo. I’ve got s’il vous plait down, finally, thank you very much.

Tonight our grandsons were over and we watched Home Alone with them. Its the first time I’d seen it in twenty years. Oh that Culkin was cute. Afterward we baked Gingerbread Cookie, Xmas ornaments. Tomorrow we will go to church to rehearse Sunday’s children’s service with a Christmas pageant. School Board! What’s that?

After showers and a very late nine O’clock bedtime I read the boys a small slice of my blog’s “Harry’s Diary” from three years, ten days ago. They were a big part of that post – the day my Mother died. I didn’t write it for children but I did write it for them much as my Mother sat me down and told me family stories. If I write that book about my Grandfather Mom will be my co-author. As I did the day Mom died I sang Good King Wenceslas to the boys after I finished reading them the post. Then I went downstairs to watch Washington Week in Review with Claudia. Hooray for Alabama!

Oh, and about this post’s title. I began my political career 16 election campaigns ago with the idea that I had an obligation to make clear what I stood for and that this obligation took precedence over getting elected. I hate the idea of keeping one’s political agenda to oneself for fear of losing an election. For instance, I’d be embarrassed to let the people of Duluth think I was open minded about selling an empty ten million dollar albatross to a competitor. That’s the modus operandi of our probable next school board chair.

With my retirement the blog will have far fewer revelations about the Duluth Schools which will make our Superintendent happy. He set his wife and the union to work to elect a more compliant school board and succeeded mightily. Now he has a lot more positivity to deal with the two million shortfall he recently revealed to the world.

Here’s one of Jana Hollingsworth’s last stories as the Trib’s Education Reporter on the District’s attempts to solve its financial difficulties.

Not my problem. My last meeting is Tuesday night.

I lost. I’m free.

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