I agree with @UrLogicFails, local offices are incredibly important positions. A city council can affect so many facets of citizens’ lives, for better or worse, and a decisive vote for reducing insitutionalized harms is a huge thing to bring to the table. If you’ve got the bandwidth and inclination, go for it. Even the running for a position can be a platform to bring about social change, however small it seems.
It’s something that I’ve considered, but we’re recent enough residents in a state with an insular culture (Maine - I’ll tell you the “joke” I was told by a townie shortly after moving here if you want) and trying to bootstrap a business so it’s tough to place any resources towards it currently. It’ll certainly be revisited if circumstances make it an option, though.
Yes, where I live it’s very common to introduce oneself by describing how long you’ve lived here. Honestly, it’s just downright depressing, and I refuse to do it lol
What’s the joke from the townie, out of curiosity?
“A couple bought a house in Maine and a few weeks later their son was born at (hospital in New Hampshire). He grew up in that house, played little league, went to school and work in Maine. Lived here his whole life and when he died his tombstone read ‘he was almost one of us’”
It’s a real knee slapper. My diction is still nonregional enough that picking me out as a flatlander is easy, but I get on well enough with some of the older generational farmers in the area at least. Still, in a town of <5k it’s tough to be “from away” and be perceived as working to build with your community instead of some kind of carpetbagger trying to change folks’ way of life.
I agree with @UrLogicFails, local offices are incredibly important positions. A city council can affect so many facets of citizens’ lives, for better or worse, and a decisive vote for reducing insitutionalized harms is a huge thing to bring to the table. If you’ve got the bandwidth and inclination, go for it. Even the running for a position can be a platform to bring about social change, however small it seems.
It’s something that I’ve considered, but we’re recent enough residents in a state with an insular culture (Maine - I’ll tell you the “joke” I was told by a townie shortly after moving here if you want) and trying to bootstrap a business so it’s tough to place any resources towards it currently. It’ll certainly be revisited if circumstances make it an option, though.
Yes, where I live it’s very common to introduce oneself by describing how long you’ve lived here. Honestly, it’s just downright depressing, and I refuse to do it lol
What’s the joke from the townie, out of curiosity?
“A couple bought a house in Maine and a few weeks later their son was born at (hospital in New Hampshire). He grew up in that house, played little league, went to school and work in Maine. Lived here his whole life and when he died his tombstone read ‘he was almost one of us’”
It’s a real knee slapper. My diction is still nonregional enough that picking me out as a flatlander is easy, but I get on well enough with some of the older generational farmers in the area at least. Still, in a town of <5k it’s tough to be “from away” and be perceived as working to build with your community instead of some kind of carpetbagger trying to change folks’ way of life.
If that town is anything like our South Dakota towns, then they could use a few outsiders coming in to rock their world.
Some of the most deeply fucked places I’ve seen are small “friendly” towns.