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To the editor:
With apologies to Charles Dickens ...
Ed Neaser was this really rich guy in town whose money came from the beer distributorship and the chain of coin laundries he owned. But you couldn't tell he was rich, because he lived in a cheap ranch house and ran his empire from a rented office with his employee, Robert Kratz, a CPA who was good with computers. Kratz sat in his cubicle all day, putting out Ed's profit statements and taxes and stuff. But Kratz never looked happy in the office, because his boy, Big Jim, a fourteen-year-old who was already 6-foot-4 and playing basketball, wanted Rob to take him to Disneyworld. There was no Disneyworld money in Rob's budget, but that didn't stop Big Jim from bugging him about it.
Anyway, Ed was in the office one day and this young couple came in with a lot of literature about Silver Party candidates.
"Don't waste your time," Ed said. "I'm a Gold guy; my father voted Gold, and my grandfather voted Gold. We're a Gold family."
So, the Silver people were out of there in a hurry.
That night, after watching political shows all evening, Ed went to bed and to sleep. Suddenly, he woke up, and there was a guy sitting on his bed that looked like his dead Uncle Jerry, whom Ed had done a number on to get control of the beer distributorship.
"It's me all right, Ed," said the ghost. "I hate to tell you, but you're not going to have a good night. You see these things?" and Ed noticed that the ghost had little packets of papers strung on strings all over him. "These are receipts for all my political donations over the years. Did they do anything for me? Not a chance. Be careful about politics, Ed. I'll check back with you tomorrow." And with that, he vanished.
Ed woke up in the middle of the night in a dream. He was in his sister's house, his sister who married this guy Jack Mullins. There were a lot of people there playing Mexican Train dominoes together and having a great time. Ed couldn't believe it, because all these people were always arguing with each other over politics; Jack and his sister in fact hardly spoke to each other. But here they all were, having the time of their lives.
"Isn't it a good thing that we've all registered Independent?" said one person, and the dream blacked out.
Before long, Ed was in a new dream. Rob Kratz was at his kitchen table on his third bourbon, heavily into the sauce. And it was all because of Big Jim: because he was still sore about Disneyworld, he had been staying out late, hanging with questionable kids, and probably into marijuana.
Then there was a third dream; Ed was in his house. Suddenly, he heard a noise from the cellar; it was an alarm on his air conditioner that said he better get someone in to fix it fast. He rushed upstairs to deal with this, but his wife saw him and said, "Where are those things I told you to get at the store? I need them now if we're going to have dinner on time!"
The door bell rang, and an angry woman there said, "Is that you dog at our house who's barking at my cats?" And, on top of this, the phone rang. He answered it; it was his father, who said, "Are you going to vote Gold again?"
Desperately, Ed said, "Sure, Dad, sure." But, his father said, "You are? Are you nuts? Don't you know what's happened to the Gold party?" And his father started swearing at him -- swearing and swearing until Ed woke up in a sweat.
It was Election Day. And suddenly, Ed was happy: all those phone calls and lawn signs and political ads and stuff would be gone by tomorrow. He was so happy that he sent Kratz a package deal for his family to Disneyworld (although it wasn't the deluxe full week; it was just the budget weekend plan). He had slept late, and he was hungry. He saw a pizza guy out the window and yelled at him to bring him a medium pie for lunch.
When the pizza arrived, the guy said, "It's Election Day. How are you going to vote?"
Ed smiled and said, "I'll never tell."
John Brittain
Lewistown