Red Riding Hood/A Cabin in the Woods

My favorite fairy tale is and will always be Little Red Riding Hood. I have often wondered why--I mean, it's a dark and strange tale with a fairly violent ending. You know it: A girl lives in a deep dark forest with possibly her mother. She is told to bring some freshly baked goods to her grandmother. In my mind the route is much like the one to our own grandmother's house...through a cow path, under fences, over stone walls...The girl wears a red cape with a hood, hence the name Red Riding Hood.

Well, Red dallies, picking flowers and kicking stones along the path and eventually does arrive at her Gran's cabin in the woods. But, apparently because she has taken so long, a wild wolf has beaten her to the cabin and gulped up poor old granny whole.

The wolf then poses as Gran, even dressed up AS GRAN in  her night cap, long cotton night gown and wire spectacles. And we all know what happens next--Red Riding Hood notices that her grandmother's looks have significantly changed since the last they met. So Red questions the wolf, "Oh, my, Grandmother! What big EYES you have!" (and all the rest)

Red is wise to the wolf's answers and although they leave kids these days shaking in their boots, she soldiers on because this was a long, long time ago and kids were braver back then (and possibly more foolish.) Red doesn't get to save herself or her gran the way modern re-told fairy tale heroines do--instead a wood cutter gets that job. Axe strikes. Gran pops out of the wolf's belly and all is right in the fairy tale world.

Peace is returned to the cabin in the woods. The birds start to chirp. Wee chipmunks come out from under dried leaves and scurry about. A gentle breeze comes along and little children everywhere learn the life lesson that they are not to dally when sent on an errand through the deep dark woods. They are to go STRAIGHT THERE and come STRAIGHT BACK...or something very sinister will happen. Not only to them, but to their elders!

The Joys of Being a Public Servant-Planning Commission

Getting on the Planning Commission of my tiny town was supposed to be easy. You meet a few people, shake a few hands and bing, bang, boom--you're on. At least, I had heard that that was the way it was going to be and it was...until it wasn't.

I first had to meet and greet the Development Review Board. They smiled and didn't ask any questions. One person did say something mildly sexist about "we need more women on the board." {Or is that reverse discrimination, I never know.} So they rubber stamped me and I was off.

Then I was told by Mr. T., the planning/zoning/health officer, that I needed to meet with the Trustees. That they would be asking me questions and that I might want to phone him to discuss what they might want to know. Now, I knew that they knew that one of my seven sisters was a local Realtor and that they had ASKED, no BEGGED her to serve and that she had declined. People being who and what they are,  they believed that I was a  sister substitute Mud City Girl--you know, we all look alike, we must be interchangeable? So I called T at home after he had expressly asked me NOT TO DURING THE RED SOX GAME---T's from Boston...

So I called him during the game, he muted it and said the VERY same things that my girlfriends have been saying to me for years just before every blind date I have ever been on: "Don't worry. Just be yourself!"        
T thought we should just do a little practice so he asked me flat out, "Why do you want to join the Planning Commission?" My immediate answer wasn't the regular snarky one I had used when other people had asked me the same question. I heard myself saying that I grew up here, more or less, went to school here and have come back home, I have purchased a house, I pay taxes.... I work for the city and have for many years and I believe I could be of service to my home town.

"Good answer!" T said and turned the game back up. "Don't worry. They'll love you."

I then attended the Trustees meeting that took place at the local "Water and Light" department. It was their territory, I hadn't done my homework well enough to know who would be in the room so when I was asked to join them at a round table with seven or eight men and a woman, all of whom were scowling at me, I was taken aback. T was right. They had questions. One of which was, {and I swear} "What do you think about sewer?"

Sewer? I hesitated, "Do you mean the idea of HAVING sewers or sewage or sewage treatment?"

Everyone smiled. "No," the guy said. "You pay for sewage. What do you think of the rates?"

"Um...uh..." I stammered. "I think they are about average, I think?" I mean, the head guy at the Water and Light Department was sitting next to me. It was obvious that the businessmen who had clearly been fighting with and accusing him of God knows what wanted an answer from me. And they wanted it to match what THEY thought. Now, I can tell when I have disappointed a person. It's an automatic thing I learned when I was five years old. I thought my goose was cooked until the next, and dare I say, more bizarre question was sent my way. And it was: "Do you think you should be able to tell people in town what color to paint their houses?"

I knew I would get this one right so I said, "No. I think property owners can paint their houses any color they want. If they want a purple house with pink polka dots, they can have it. The neighbors might not like it but...."

Frowns all around the table....so I continued, "I mean, in Craftsbury Common and Albany village...places like that...all the houses are white so I suppose there must be a zoning law in place in SOME towns. Like the village green...?(Shut up! I kept saying inside my head. Shut. UP!) But I couldn't stop. "And I know in Stowe the signage is all the same size and the colors can only be gold, green, red..."

I was interrupted by the question-asker who shouted, "Well, you go that one wrong! You CAN tell them what color to paint their houses!" He had  good laugh on that one. Then it was my turn to scowl. I thought, "What the hell is going on here? Make fun of the new girl?"

 Later someone asked if I thought I could keep an open mind about development, possibly a town baron code for "Think like us". Vote our way. So I said, the way one does at a job interview when asked about ones proficiency or knowledge of some software program one has never hear of-- "Yes, yes I can." I did get out of there alive, obviously, but I think my candidacy did come down to one thing: entertainment value. I told them after the peppering of obviously not well-thought-out questions, "T told me you would have lots of questions. But he also told me not to call him during the Red Sox game at night. So I did call him last night. Luckily they were playing the Cards--my team..." and they all garfarred and gullumphed themselves into a nice "that will do"-- allowing me to help myself out into the night. Me and my "big city ways."

The next appointment (and, mind you, this was at least three weeks into the running here) was with the Planning Commission itself. Not a woman in the room other than me, so I took back what I thought about the "we need a woman" comment because they did need a woman. Their only questions were about which Mud City girl I was and did I live there now and was I that realtor's sister. So this time, I passed the test because this time? The answer was one I could get right. So they let me in. Allowed me the opportunity to help my town go forth in a new direction. Keeping in mind an open mind. Keeping in mind, too, that my "term" ends in about two months from when it began.