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Lemons and Porcupine Mayors

Lemons and Porcupine Mayors

Hank Green & Payton Mitchell
November 08, 2024

Hello,

Earlier this week, while I was raking leaves, a canvasser walked up to me wearing his Jon Tester hat and holding his clipboard. He knew that everyone in my house had already voted (once your ballot is in, you get crossed off their list) but we chatted a bit anyway, which was nice because the leaves were wet and I was freaking tired. But we have a leaf pickup day here and, if you don't get most of them off the yard, they get snowed on and, by the time the snow melts, you've just got a solid mat of gross.

Here's something weird...I just started to pre-emptively tell you why I rake my leaves because I know the internet has told some people that it's better to leave the leaves! There's even a slogan: Leave the Leaves! The leaves are good for little bugs and pollinators and that keeps the food webs of our urban forests healthier. But I don't want to leave the leaves because if you do, the thick mat of maple leaves will absolutely kill your grass, and we have some grass, which I know some people also think people shouldn't have anymore, but it is nice when you like to have kids over to play with your son outside...

I'M DOING IT AGAIN!!

I have been trained by making stuff on the internet to be constantly aware of all issues that currently exist because I want to avoid (and I can't stress this enough) the 0.01% of people who are going to reply to my tweet or leave a comment on my video giving me a hard time for doing something that is totally normal. I need to get my head wrapped around the extent to which I tiptoe around attempting to decrease the odds that someone will yell at me on the internet.

But when I was talking with the canvasser, I did not for one moment think "I wonder if he thinks it’s weird that I'm raking," both because he's from Missoula so he knows the situation, and because THAT WOULD BE A BIZARRE THING TO THINK!! Instead what he thought was "It's nice that this guy is taking care of his yard," and what I thought was, "It is nice that this guy is taking care of his country."

I am pretty demoralized, but I've been thinking about that canvasser this week, because of course the candidates he was hoping to get out the vote for (some of whom are friends of mine) did not get close to getting elected. It feels like a lot of work was done just to fail. But the work that he did, talking with neighbors and deepening the web of our community was in no way wasted time. If you did any canvassing or phone banking or volunteering for causes you believe in this election, please send along a note that you did (if you want to send some proof we can feature, that would be awesome), and I'll send you a good.store gift card.

Thanks, y'all.

Still processing over here,

Hank

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