I’ve passed out literature door to door for twenty elections of more over the years. But that’s not the same thing as knocking on doors. I was thinking about it today and the last time I really seriously knocked doors was 1976. I remember learning a lot about Duluth and myself during that experience. Still, its a lot of work and I spent months doing it back then. I’ve never really had the gumption to do it since until the last couple weeks. I’m looking for lawnsign locations and been finding them but every day I come to a new appreciation of my fellow citizens.
Yesterday I saw a group of people sitting outside on a corner house with a ton of traffic. I parked a ways away and carted my literature and a bunch of lawnsigns with me intent on getting a prime location.
“Not gonna do it, move on” said one of the gathering as I approached with my conspicuous political signs. I razzed the fellow back a bit and another fellow said “He ain’t the homeowner,” and then hollered for the owner to come out and size me up. What I got was a tour of a garden with tomatoes and jalapeno peppers. The gardner asked me if I’d ever taken a bite out of a jalapeno and I said only cooked ones. He told me to pick one of his and then follow up a bite with a soothing little yellow tomato. I groused that I hadn’t planned on passing a test of manhood to stick a lawnsign up but undeterred he said it was necessary. I took one bite and then a second when the heat took a time to reveal itself to my tongue. The tomato was sort of an antidote but I had one hot mouth for the next hour.
That was OK. I got my lawnsign put up.
