April Showers

April is ending with rain showers. As hot as the atmosphere and ocean have been, I expect an abundance of rain in 2024. Our local newspaper wrote there will be “bouts of record-challenging high temperatures throughout the nation and the possibility of the hottest summer ever observed.” Call it the climate crisis, call it a lot of rain, call it whatever you will yet these are crazy times and the weather became crazy along with it.

A friend and I organized a political meet and greet at the public library so voters could meet candidates before the June 4 primary election. As mentioned yesterday, the primary election may as well be the November general election for county supervisors: The county electorate is liberal compared to many Iowa counties and Republicans on the November ballot don’t stand a chance.

It is no surprise there is discontent among the electorate. That is the county Democratic resting happy face. Two new candidates challenged three incumbents for county supervisor. I spent time at our event with each of the five, including the ones I am just getting to know. They are all good people with a set of manners one expects from a candidate for public office. Incumbency is difficult to overcome unless someone did something terribly wrong. There is no evidence of that among these incumbents.

The state house races are just beginning and neither the state senate nor representative candidate was ready with campaign literature or yard signs. April politics is a parade gathering in a field waiting for the grand marshal’s signal to start. There is a lot of milling about. All eight candidates at the event, including the county sheriff, are solid.

Inside the front entrance to the library is a stone wall with the chiseled names of original donors who built it. Our public library used to be under the bandstand in a city park, then moved to the former fire station. Both spaces were incredibly small for a library in a city and surrounding community of more than 10,000 people. Many take for granted having a well-built library with a robust staff. Not every small community can afford it. The original community donations, in money and sweat equity, set the path for a great local resource we use for our political meetings and many other things.

Morning sunlight is drying the driveway as I type these words. No rain is forecast so it should be a decent day of outdoors work. Soon it will be time to get cabbages in the ground.