Election day hope

Here in the alleged birthplace of the Republican party, where those of us still pushing for a blue Wisconsin tend to cringe and tiptoe around homegrown political rhetoric coming from our local shopkeeps and small business owners, charming and cheerful as they can often be. So when I went to buy socks at the shop around the corner just now (how's that for an all-american lunch-hour thing to do?), and walked in on raised voices and phrases like "this joker" and "U.N. involvement," I set my teeth and said to myself, "Socks. I'm here for socks."

But soon it became apparent that the septuagenarian behind the counter was actually that rarest of beasts in Nowhere, WI, a thoughtful, if exceedingly vociferous, progressive! After browbeating her interlocutor out of the building by loudly demanding some evidence for her Fox News-based assertions about the war, my new favorite sock merchant and I had a vigorous chit chat about the abuses of the local Assembly of God pulpit, various arguments for and against the reinstitution of the draft, and her grandchildren.

I was nearly skipping about, I was so happy to meet her. I have new faith in the town's political heteroglossia, and I have three pairs of socks, for $10.47.