I was talking to a reporter tonight, and he asked me why I write about Connecticut. The question caught me a bit off-guard, and the best I could do was to stammer out that I had always been interested in Connecticut politics.
But why? There are a lot of possible answers. Politics, campaigns and elections especially, fascinates me, and I'm quite fond of my home state. It's natural that those interests should mix, right?
There may be a simpler reason. Here's a quick story:
When I was a little boy, my mother took my sister and I into Hartford, to visit the State Capitol. We took the tour. I remember being impressed by the building, but little else except this:
We were on the first floor somewhere when a large (to me) man came over to say hello to us. He was very kind, and shook my hand. I learned that he was Bill O'Neill, who was then the governor of Connecticut. It struck me, even then, that such an important man would take a moment out of his day to say hello to two kids and their mother. If there is a moment when I was bitten by the political bug, that was it. I've always thought of Gov. O'Neill fondly since that day.
So, if there's a reason, there it is.
10 comments:
Not like you care about any particular issues?
Really, if all you are is star-struck, why not write for People magazine?
You, apparently, write just to be irritating. If you go back and look the nearly 400 posts I've made over the past eleven months, you'll see that there is quite a bit I care about.
Sheesh.
Can you give us a Top Ten?
GC, better watch it, DF says no college degree, no job in public service.
Evidently O'Neill's (and Rell's)20 years in elective office makes them less quailfied than the next nonshaving Yalie who picks up a sheepskin in May
Genghis, I think this is a great post. I think that Gov O'Neill's kindness and civility is an important example of how we can have positive affects in people's lives through simple kindness.
While I don't think Anonymous(1:06) was intending to do this, I think they have further illustrated the importance of kindness and civility by providing a negative contrast.
People like Gov. O'Neill makes us want to work together to help make Connecticut better. People like Anonymous(1:06) don't encourage this, at least in my mind.
I've written a little more about this over on my personal blog.
Thanks, Aldon. Great post on your blog... I've been doing a lot of thinking about online civility myself, lately. It's working its way into a big post for sometime in the future.
Anonymous gives all of us anonymouses a bad name.
At least there was no web address without an embedded link.
Can you tell that that drives me crazy?
Genghis-
Great post re: O'Neill. I for one think you run a great site which is evidenced by the high volume of people who post here. The discussions are always interesting and usually civil. Great job!
Aldon--
You are so right. My bad, and outright apologies to Genghis.
I'm too used to Democratic sites where people are passionate about the politics of the Left. This isn't a Democratic site, and I just have to remember that.
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