American Pie

American Pie
By: M. Austen Gilbertson
“Lino Lakes Prescient 3 room 112”, a tall well dressed man said. As a migrant bird instinctually follows the same annual path I know my way to room 112. My caucus was held at my old high school, and I knew what would be in that room, and I was excited. “Welcome to Mrs. Johnson’s Foods and Nutrition Classroom” the same sign read from years ago. The final project in Mrs. Johnson’s Foods 2 class was to make an apple pie. My scenery recall went off; I could hear the apple peelers squeaking as they were turned removing the green skin of so many apples. I could smell the rich sent of baking cinnamon and, and could feel the warmth of 12 ovens set for 425 degrees. I sat there and thought, how perfect! What could be the only thing more American then participating in the electoral process? Apple Pie.

Unlike the always satisfying feeling of eating a well baked pie my caucus experience was more like eating bakers chocolate, more bitter then sweet. Driving this apple pie analogy into the ground lets us pair each steep with an ingredient.

First, the flour, we will call this the parking lot; important and a must have, but always messy, like an over filled, icy parking lot.

The next ingredient is the shortening. This I relate to lots of people. It has it advantages like knowing that this means people are getting involved, but bad because of high fat content.

The water in a pie is something that goes unnoticed. Not many people know it is even there. This would be the volunteers. With out them the crust (or the event) would fall apart.

The egg, the binder the one that holds the thing together, this would be the politicians. Without them, ranting and encouraging, and throwing themselves at you, you just would not know how or what to think.

Cinnamon is bitter and that is how I felt about the unsecure process of the Caucus. Simply sighing a legal pad to show you are who you say you are, filling out hand written ballots, placing my ballot in an over full envelope hanging on the wall. Seems like a lot of faith in out moralistic political culture if you ask me.

So is there any thing that stands alone as good?

Well, I can’t complain about apples so that will be the hordes young people being civically responsible. The halls were filled with 08 letter jackets and ears with little white wires growing out of them.

Let’s not forget the sugar, I guess that could represent the sweet feeling of accomplishment that goes with knowing that I made a difference in my county. That I said, “Hey, I think we need some changes, this is what they are, and I think you are the right person to do them”.

So what have we learned?

Individually some things are bad, they are down right nasty. But put them together and you have something sweet. American Pie!