Locally Famous

We decided to vote early today and headed out to a community center just up the hill from us. There was a bit of a line, but the day was beautiful, quintessentially October, golden sun, flaming leaves, luminous sky, and it was a pleasure to wait. A candidate for county board chatted us up as we stood. "I'm here for questions, or complaints, or--" he paused.

"Or votes?" I teased him. "You have ours." 

"Thank you!" he laughed and moved on down the line. 

There were several volunteers from the local Democrats, and at the top of the hour they had a mini-shift change. One young man made his way to the card table they had set up as a command center. He walked steadily on forearm crutches and said introduced himself in a loud voice. It was a name recognized from the sixth grade class 15 years ago. I turned to look at more carefully, and sure enough I could just make out the 11-year-old boy in the thin and rangy man with shaggy blond hair: the blue eyes were the same. I went back to say hello, removing my sunglasses and mask so that he might recognize me, too. 

In sixth grade, he was on our team, but not in my English class. He was in our school's functional life skills program, but he was full of personality and known to all. He didn't have many conversational filters back then, and I found the same was still pretty true. 

"How have you been?" I asked.

"Physically?" he replied, and waved his crutches at me. "I have these."

"I'm sorry that happened to you," I told him.

"That's muscular dystrophy," he shrugged.

"How's your mom?" I asked.

"She has a blood clot in her leg!" he reported. "From running."

"Well, at least she's staying active," I said, a little unsure where to take the conversation next.

"I think it's your turn to go in," he nodded to the door where Heidi was holding my place.

"I'm going to tell your teachers I saw you," I said. "They're going to be a little jealous."

"I know," he answered. "They liked me."