Our Little Town

I have lived all my life in big cities. I grew up in LA; I went to grad school and then began my career in Portland, Or.; and up until last year, lived for 33 years in Seattle. So the adjustment to living in a small town has proven interesting, to say the least. Not that I don't love it. The Harbor is a sweet place to live. The pace is low-key. The natives are friendly. In fact, Hoquiam boasts to being the friendliest town in Washington State.But the thing that has really struck me in this election season is that I actually get to vote for County Coroner. I've never lived in a place where the position of coroner is an elected office. And not only is it an elected office, it is a partisan office. Who knew?As it turns out, both candidates here are Democrats. That is good, because I don't want a Republican performing my autopsy. One of the candidates is a nurse. The other is the current coroner who was appointed to the office after the previous coroner moved onto another position. We ended up voting for the current office holder. But you can see both candidates campaign signs all over town and in Aberdeen.
There were a couple of other important ballot issues. One is designed to overturn the Washington State Legislature's "Everything but Marriage" law that granted our gay citizens equality in all things, except for marriage. We voted, of course, to retain the new law, even if means destroying our marriage, which I'm sure is part of teh gay agenda.


The other is an initiative to cap government revenue sources and was promoted by our state wingnut, Tim Eyman. Surely something we need; cripple government during a recession.

Anyway, that's the scoop from our little town for now.