OK, I approach a polling place in Far North Dallas on Frankford Road where I see a representative of Mayor Laura Miller out front. He appears to be fast asleep.
When asked for her name, one of Laura Miller's representatives at a polling place hid behind a tree, smoking up a storm.
Related Content
More About
The Laura Miller representative is sprawled loosely over a lawn chair in front of the door to a city rec center. At his elbow lies a stack of pamphlets explaining the point of view of Mayor Miller, the Trinity Commons Foundation, the Dallas Citizens Council and real estate baron Harlan Crow on the Trinity River toll road project.
They're all for putting a toll road through the new park we're trying to build along the river downtown. They don't want people signing any petitions today calling for a referendum against the road. So they've hired persons like the gentleman who slumbers before me at this moment to explain their point of view and try to talk people out of signing.
This particular representative of our mayor is clad in red pants, a T-shirt and a cap pulled down over his face. From beneath the cap I believe I hear the sound of snoring.
Ah, but no. An attractive North Dallas woman in tennis shorts has approached the polling place, and the Laura Miller representative now opens one eye to appraise the proximate passage of her smooth, bare legs.
"Mommy," he mumbles to her, smiling slyly with only one eye open, lips stuck together with sleepy saliva. "Hey, Mommy."
But I have the distinct impression this woman is not the mother of the Laura Miller representative. In fact she looks quite distressed that the Laura Miller representative is even speaking to her, let alone addressing her as Mommy.
Now the would-be voter with the legs is giving the Laura Miller/Citizens Council/Trinity Commons/Harlan Crow representative the very widest possible berth she can manage and still get to the door without falling headlong into the shrubbery.
But the Laura Miller representative is undeterred. With thumb and little finger waggling at his ear in the universal hand sign for telephone, the Laura Miller representative appears to be suggesting an assignation with his mother.
"Hey, Mommy," he says. "I can give you my number. You can call me later."
She shakes her head no—a very definitive no—and batters her way through the door into the polling place. I am quite sure the woman was not the mother of the representative of Laura Miller. In spite of differences I may have had with the mayor over the years, I do not believe that a representative of hers would suggest a liaison with his own mother in the presence of a reporter.
Besides, now here comes another woman in shorts who he thinks is his mommy, and he's offering her his phone number too!
I must tell you. In a day of touring around to polling places last Saturday, I was quite taken aback by the caliber of persons who had been hired to represent Mayor Miller, the Dallas Citizens Council, the Trinity Commons Foundation and Harlan Crow on the toll road referendum issue. I am terribly worried about sounding snobbish here, because, as you can well imagine, the last thing a good liberal like myself wants to do is be snooty.
But you could have knocked me over with a feather. In fact, you could have knocked me over with the breath of a few of these folks. It puts Laura Miller, the Dallas Citizens Council, the Trinity Commons Foundation and Harlan Crow in a whole new light.
The hiring of so-called "blockers" to keep people from signing petitions is not new or unique to Dallas by any means. In a number of states—Nebraska in particular—things have gotten so out of hand that attempts have been made to pass legislation protecting the petition process from gangs of goons hired to scare people out of signing.
What is unusual here is the class of people doing the hiring. I'm a proud former union member myself, so I say this advisedly: In most of the cases I have read about elsewhere, the goons have been hired by people who sort of know what they're doing. Like tough labor unions.
Here, the people who want to kill the petition drive and ward off a referendum seem like hot-house flowers. I don't know if they're really up to this. Not to be unkind, but the people I found at the polls representing our mayor and the rest of them didn't even rise to the level of goon. Some of them, like the gentleman on Frankford Road, didn't rise at all, as a matter of fact.
My son, Will, who had surprised his mother by coming home for Mother's Day and was accompanying me on my tour of the polls, wound up sitting down with the gentleman in red and having quite a chat with him. Both of them, it seems, are what are called "rappers." Who knew?
The man in red was a Mr. Q from Detroit. Just Q. Usually he is employed as a rapper. Apparently my son is also a rapper. Like my son, Q was only in town for a few days. He was here from Detroit to assist the mayor in her efforts to defeat the Trinity toll road referendum.
