reflections on civic duty

Went to first ever town  hall meeting with Faith (my wife).  After seeing the horrific uncivil tea party mobs which overran town halls all over the country last year, I was braced for some drama.  Fortunately, I was disappointed.  Our local congressman is a moderate Democrat who played host to a small crowd of baby boomers who were just trying to make sense of the soap opera that D.C. has become.  Aside from a couple of harmless cranks, most of the questioners had parochial concerns, or suggestions for grand solutions to intractable problems.  He set a limit of one hour of questions and we felt that was probably a good amount of time.  More would have been repetitive, although the entertainment quotient was relatively high.  We left the meeting feeling that there is hope for representative democracy.