Sometimes it's the receiving

Better to give than to receive, right?

Last week while out glad-handing and kissing babies in Bourbon and Argos (ok, I didn't kiss any babies, but I did pat a toddler on the head), I stopped on my way between the two communities at a home of an old friend in Tippecanoe Township.  I had been pushing my campaign paraphernalia off on poor folks as I knocked on doors and planted signs on their main streets, but didn't bother to take anything with me at this stop.  I left the car running because I doubted she would be home, but she was, and she invited me in to sit awhile.

As I was getting ready to leave she said that she had something to give me that had been presented to her late husband, a fellow I had worked with when I first began my civic career, a long time ago.  She pulled the neatly folded package out of a drawer in his former office and I could hardly believe my eyes.  Just the night before, as a friend was photographing Old Glory near our front door, I thought to myself....gee...I kinda need a Marshall County flag.  And that's what she unwrapped.

She said she thought I would appreciate it, tearing up.  Which of course began to make me tear-up as I relayed my thoughts from the previous night.  She said it was meant to be then.  Their son became a friend of mine who helped me do some renovation work on our house in town.  He literally worked for franks and beans.  A good guy all the way around.

I left with the flag, pointed my car west and drove into Argos where another sign was planted overlooking the town park, where a few bones of my ancestors were left when it was converted from a burial ground to a park in the 1920s.  I then walked the downtown and visited the barber who set up shop a long time ago in the building that housed my great-grandmother's dress shop, and then visited another merchant who relayed some tough things going on in her life.  By the time I got home that night my heart was pretty full, though my stack of flyers hadn't greatly decreased.  I much prefer this style of campaigning, when I receive a lot more than I hand out.