What are the odds our Pumpkinfest volunteers all agreed with each other on everything? What are the odds they could have sat through a Thanksgiving meal together without finding something fundamental to argue about?
Slim, we are guessing.
Knowing Mainers, Yankees; we are betting they could choose not to get along if they wanted to, but there’s the thing – they wanted to.
This past week, dozens of volunteers from all walks of life came together for a common cause and collectively hosted a week-long community block party. It worked. It was great.
People had a good time, nobody got hurt, local businesses benefited and the entire affair increasingly attracts positive state and national attention by the year.
A good time was had by all. We are hard pressed to find a downside.
Whatever differences people putting on the event may have had, (and we are sure they had them), they were put aside for the common good during the event and it worked. Now that this Pumpkinfest is over, now is the time to revisit what worked and what didn’t; figure out what needs improvement for next year.
Now is the time to bring differences out in the open for the common good, instead of setting them aside.
As of this writing, the federal government is shuttered and we are within spitting distance of defaulting on the national debt. This is bad. Our government is literally not working.
Forget, for a moment, how we got here. The fact is, we shouldn’t be here. Careening from crisis to crisis is not a system of government, it’s a recipe for disaster and here, right here, right now, we are flirting with an entirely avoidable disaster.
There comes a time when just keeping the boat afloat is more important than deciding what direction to row in. This is one of those times.
If our elected representatives can’t do business based on that basic premise, maybe we should ask some Pumpkinfest volunteers to go down to Washington and show them how to do it right.
