My boys are men
June 4, 2007

Now that the boys are men, I am limiting my gushing.  But I just wanted to say a big Happy 24th Birthday to my middler, Michael Dahl.  We have feted the event at a barbeque, his roommate has lured the rat pack to concelebrate, and if there is a God, the White Sox will get their pinstripes straight to entertain Mike this evening.  I will be sitting in on a Recreation Department meeting during the game, and I expect it will be less painful than the White Sox have been of late.

I am now a trustee in our sleepy little village, and the learning curve is steep.  Nothing is as simple as I believed it was.   I have learned that it is far easier to be an uninformed complainer than a problem solver.   Mind you, I was not a complainer; I was very content in my town.  But a hometown does not stay wonderful without a lot of work and wheeling-dealing.  Now I am on the task force to keep this place ideal, and it will involve a great deal of rethinking and active participation.  It is a good fit with my empty-nested life, but not necessarily with my unformatted lifestyles.  Municipalities live and die by meetings.  Some are for action, some are for information, and a great number serve a public relations purpose.  I am at all three kinds. 

When I was on school board, we all had a simple goal- funding and providing a great education.  City service is far more complicated, because the goals are diffused from neighborhood to neighborhood, as well as from age to age.  Everyone wants to think globally, but it is human nature to focus locally.  Sometimes the “local” is as close as one’s lot.  It is still, at that moment, the most pressing issue in that person’s life.  I am learning to go from myopic to distance thinking skills in rapid succession.  You know how dizzy you get when you have new bifocals?  That is my world right now.

This is a one- term commitment, so by the time I get really informed, I will be a lame duck.  That is why I am trying to adapt in a timely manner.  Last week I was driving around one neighborhood trying to get up to speed on some zoning stuff, and I think someone called the police on me as a suspicious lurker.  The police cruiser set my radar detector a-buzzing, and I knew I was being checked out, so I headed out of Dodge. 

I actually love living in a town where everyone is attempting to provide a bit of security, but I was pretty defensive for a moment.  I expect that there are many differences of opinion that I will be experiencing in the next 4 years, and I am ready to be the woman in the middle.  That is the seesaw of various perceptions I am processing at this time.  It’s good that I am old enough to be SO over the need to be popular.  My kids broke me in to the reality of endless criticism and hostility.  I finally see that there was a greater purpose to all that complaining.  I am ready to serve.

There are endless larger issues facing this board- infrastructure, growth, Metra and municipal co-operation, safety, money and community preparedness for a myriad of worst-case scenarios. Trust me, ignorance is bliss.  Work, however, is good for the brain.  It may help to keep mine gummy and flexible.  I know that will be good for my family and me.  If my words here ever hint that I am becoming brittle and disillusioned, feel free to write and gut-check me.  I want to be a positive change for my town, but I do not want this work to change my essential optimism.  I insist that we can all get along, and thrive. Every once in awhile, we need to look over the fence of our own world, and defer to the common good.  I hope I can be the catalyst every so often.