Reality Bites By James Norton

There was dancin‚Äô at the fireworks last week ‚Äì literally and figuratively.  I myself  opted to stay home, but my father took my kids to see the show.  He told me there were plenty of candidates, pod people and pod people wannabes floating about and I wasn‚Äôt surprised in the least.

The interesting interaction on our website regarding the event ranged from people saying it was great for the community to those who wanted to speculate as to why waste the money and how much it cost the taxpayers for the overtime for DPW workers, police details, etc ‚Äì you know what?  Who gives a crap?  The cost benefit of increasing community pride far outweighs whatever the final actual costs become and it‚Äôs clearly just another case of online bitchers and moaners who have nothing better to do than hate the administration for everything it does.

Historically, this city becomes a virtual ghost town around the actual 4th of July and the following week ‚Äì some even say for the entire summer.  There are large groups of Somerville residents who have summer homes in Falmouth on Cape Cod and up in New Hampshire, specifically in Moultonborough.

There are those people who take their families to the weekend retreats and stay here in the city during the week ‚Äì these are the people who gossip on the weekends and then let the rumor waters flow when they reach the city limits.  With the upcoming races this year, there will be a lot of posturing and pod people running their mouths for sure.

I wonder, since we can now get ‚Äúorange alerts‚Äù on our cell phones, can we get a ‚Äúblack alert‚Äù for pod people activity?  It‚Äôs something I‚Äôm sure the fair Dr. Mrs. Mary McCarthy and her minions from Cambriville are working on as she reads this ‚Äì aren‚Äôt you, pookie?

That was an inside joke people, relax.

I had hoped to make very specific plans with a close friend and our kids, but that didn‚Äôt work out anywhere close to what I had hoped, so I‚Äôll be spending a lot of time with just my family and a couple of other close friends who will join us on the weekends.  The kids being here for the next two months and being the ages that they are (13 and 14 this month) will give me a lot of time to get to know them better and bond with them. It‚Äôs tough when they live in England and are five hours ahead on the clock to keep in constant contact normally.

So yes, I will be one of the people who goes up north on the weekends with the kids and my parents and various “guests” and then return Monday morning to get back to work, but I try to stay above the fray and observe the political dancing during the summer months – I do work for a newspaper, so observation of the election year rituals serves a few purposes for me, natch.