Watching Out for Each Other

Yesterday when I was running, I rounded a corner and saw a Town of Highlands pickup truck stopped at the bottom of Big Bearpen Road.  I recognized the driver as one of the guys from the Electric Department's Trimming Crew, and he was putting up a sign in the road.

"Uh-oh," I said.  "That looks like trouble!"  He laughed.  "No, we're just going to take down some trees that are about to fall on an electric line."  

"Well be careful," I said.  "Oh, don't worry," he replied.  "We watch out for each other."  That is certainly something that a crew taking down trees near an electric line has to keep uppermost in mind, and I know from my own work with the Town that these men train all the time on how to safely work around trees and high voltage.  They even have to periodically pass a test showing that they are able to climb a pole and rescue a fellow worker who is injured.  It occurred to me that "Watching Out for Each Other" is a pretty good philosophy of life.

This morning, we drove to Town together, and when we returned we were proudly wearing these little stickers.  Yes, early voting began in Highlands today, and we wanted to vote as soon as possible.  We had seen on the news that voters were lined up for hours and hours in many locations, but we didn't have to wait at all.

It felt especially good to cast our ballots this year.  The past four years have been tumultuous ones in our country.  I don't think I have ever seen a time when there is so much divisiveness, so much hatred and bigotry and racism on open display, and I am old enough to remember the Civil Rights era, the Vietnam War demonstrations, and Watergate.  I never thought that I would see Nazis and White Supremacists marching in our streets, nor that our President would refuse to denounce them.

I know that this blog is ostensibly about running and I don't often let politics intrude.  But I was thinking this morning when I cast my ballot about the idea of watching out for each other.  When we watch out for each other, we don't let children be separated from their parents and put in cages.  We don't let millions of people lose their health insurance.  We don't tell the unemployed that we're not willing to provide them with some assistance.  We don't let a pandemic rage out of control because it might hurt the poll numbers.

I think it's pretty clear how I voted.  I voted to watch out for each other.  And I voted as if my life depended on it.