Guest Commentary
The few, the proud, the poll watchers
Mack Hall

The state of Ohio is having trouble mobilizing poll watchers. Most of those currently serving are elderly, and the new generation seems uninterested.

To solve this problem, some Ohio legislators are proposing a draft, not of men and women who can shoot straight but of men and women who can whisper "Shhhhhhhhhh!" and make it sting.

One can just imagine pollwatcher boot camp:

"Suck that gut in, Ponsonby; I don't care if you are 72 years old."

"I want to see those folding chairs shine, troops, even if it takes all night!"

"They say you never hear the soft lead pencil that gets you."

"Somewhere out there is a dangling chad with your name on it."

"You have only two friends on the line - God and your foam cup of coffee."

"Let's get this straight, Johansen - there's no place in this outfit for shirkers who have to go to the potty every two hours. You got that!"

"Yeah, I had a girl. She wrote me a Dear John letter. Found a fella who was 4F and makin' a good livin' back home manufacturing ballot-box covers for the war effort."

"This is a tough mission - some of you won't be coming back from the coffee pot."

"This clipboard was carried by General Grant's third-assistant aide-de-camp only twenty miles from Shiloh. In the Spanish- American War an angry postal clerk on the USS Fiddler Crab wrote indignant letters to his congressman on this clipboard. In Viet Nam a sergeant wrote orders on this clipboard, orders giving himself an extra R & R to Bangkok. In Iraq the commandant of Abu-Grab sloshed white wine on this clipboard while writing up excuses. This clipboard is America, son. Write bureaucratic nonsense on it with pride."

Fade-out as The Mormon Tabernacle Choir sings "God Bless America" while a missing-man formation of pencil-sharpeners flies over.

Mack Hall is a resident of Kirbyville