Tuesday, February 28, 2023

Past and Present

 


I was at a City Council meeting—our City Council—last night for the first time in years.

Years.

I went with Warren because Council was talking about a long-delayed reboot of its flag and banner policy. The Symphony has banners for Concert Week that have not been flown in months as the City has been slowly reviewing its policies in light of the Supreme Court ruling in Shurtleff v. Boston. (Note: Not much progress was made last night either.)

I had a small sense of Old Home Week when I walked into Council chambers. I used to serve on our Civil Service Commission, so there was a joke with our Police Chief (who'd been a captain back in those days) and I was able to congratulate our interim Fire Chief, someone I had gotten to know well from those years. (The firefighters union, to my delight, was ever-present at our meetings; our interim Chief was in that bunch back then.) The head of HR, also someone I had known forever, came in behind me, tapping me on the shoulder and leaning in to tell me she was glad to see me. And I sat right next to the young person who I will be voting for in the next Ward elections.

I do not know most of our Council members at all anymore, although I still know the City Manager and, of course, the City Planning Director. ("Of course" because I also sat on our Historic Preservation Commission for several years. Plus I was a zoning lawyer , so even thought the current planner and I did not overlap extensively in that era, I still worked with him and his department before I hung it up.)

I found myself thinking back, way way back, to myself as a college student, to the year I was in between schools, and all the hours I spent at council and school board meetings during that time.

When I withdrew from Chicago at the end of my freshman year, I retreated to Delaware,  moving in with my Aunt Ginger and my Grandma Skatzes. It was a long period of putting myself back together — in every way imaginable. I did not work those months. I volunteered at my high school, teaching classes with the greatest English teacher I ever had. And I started attending council and school board meetings.

I had met a newly elected council member on Election Night that fall, and he encouraged me to see what city government was all about. As I was thinking of staying in Delaware, I started thinking maybe I should get a better idea of how the school board operated as well.

It ended up being a fascinating time – I made friends I still have, I felt at home at council meetings (never school board, interestingly enough), and I began to learn how this city functioned. I knew the insider jokes and side comments at Council. I change my career goal to law school, realizing that, if I was going to stay in Delaware, as I was strongly thinking I would, I wanted to make a difference and have a say in how the community operated. I started to have plans to run for Council at the next election cycle.

That was in late 1975, early 1976. By that summer, I was back in Chicago, eventually on my way to living out west for several years. I did not return to Delaware permanently until the fall of 1990.

I did become a lawyer. And when I moved back, I ended up practicing in the office of that Council member. I had met so many years earlier.

I never ran for City Council. That was not a goal by 1990 and thereafter. I almost ran for school board, but had a conflict, so did not. My service on the two city commissions was enough.

I did not sit there last night full of  nostalgia or wondering "What if...?" Maybe I had a sense of relief that I had not ventured into politics. But maybe not even that. Maybe just a sense of being there, listening to Warren make his public comments, and then heading home.

And that was more than enough. 

2 comments:

Out My window said...

So glad you became a lawyer. THink of all the good you did for others./

April said...

Oh, Kim, thank you. That means a lot. Thinking of you as you move forward.