Simon St.Laurent: June 2009 Archives
Resignation, replacement, election, coup, chaos. Or was it coup, replacement, chaos, election? 7th grade is hard, and the first part of the 21st century made the Age of Homespun seem easy to follow.
Lemuel sighed. He'd need to come up with some kind of song for that, or maybe a rhyme. Hmmm... RRECC. Like 'wreck' or maybe 'rec'. 'Wreck' sounded best, and wrecks end with chaos, mostly... And you have to resign before you're replaced, unless there's a coup, but coup was in the second half.
That should work okay for a paragraph, he decided, or a time-sequence question. The rest of the story he pretty much knew. The chaos following the coup, and the election machine disaster of the 2010 elections combining to shut down the state government. That part he'd seen a few movies about, and he even knew about why the first resignation happened, though his mother wouldn't be happy he knew that. Those pictures had made Social Studies interesting for the first time.
Out of all that chaos, Federal control, and then Federal imposition of a federal solution, whatever that meant. Western New York, Hudson, New York City, and Long Island going their separate ways, mini-states within a state. Still two Senators, but regional control inside the state, a statewide court that only decided on matters of court procedure and portionment, whatever that was, separate constitutions, separate taxes, and separate National Guards.
That first puzzle he'd had as a baby showed it. Big pieces, with a tiny court on the outside edge, looking like it was floating in the blue Lake Ontario. Every puzzle piece with its picture of the new regional capitol buildings, at Rochester, Albany, New York, and Melville. His parents were weird to have given him that, but he still had it somewhere.
His mother still rejoiced about the lower taxes, though his father always thought it was a scam. Property taxes down, sales taxes way up, but hidden into prices. They argued about the strangest things. Well, they had argued when his father was here, anyway. Lately it was just his mother praising the Regional Governor and their Legislator. His father kept asking about the Legislator when he went over for a visit. Why do parents care about politics so much?
And why did the Syl put such stupid questions on tests? All these names to learn before he could go to bed. Stories would help, but interesting stories, with real battles. Maybe these politicians needed horses to ride and lances to joust with. Or at least a video game where they could fight it out, far away from test questions. Something.
