“Some mornings, it's just not worth chewing through the leather straps.” ~ Emo Phillips 

I’m starting this week’s offering with a little whine. Sorry, I didn’t bring any cheese. You’ll have to provide your own. 

I went to bed at 10 p.m. last night. I knew I had a busy day ahead of me, and I don’t function well when I don’t get my rest. I slept well, but if I didn’t know better I’d think I’d had a few too many at The Downtown Café and didn’t hit the sheets until 3 or 4 in the morning. 

I woke up at 6 a.m., poured myself a 16-ounce mug of coffee, which is the first thing I do every morning and without which I could not function, and turned on the TV. I’m a bit obsessed with the weather. I don’t know why, I just feel that I have to watch the local weather forecast in the evening and first thing every morning. It’s what I do. It’s part of what makes me, Bob. 

I generally have to watch the weather at least three times in the morning before I can even comprehend what is being said. I sit on the couch, coffee in hand, staring at the TV screen, but until I emerge from my fog, I have no clue what’s going on around me. Again, It’s what I do. 

Every morning, without fail, my wife asks, “So what’s the weather for today?” And every morning, without fail, I reply, “Dunno. I’m not here yet,” or sometimes I just grunt. After 40 plus years with me, she knows what that means. I’d think that after 40 plus years with me she’d know better than to talk to me in the morning. I think she just likes to aggravate me. 

By the time I finish my second cup of coffee I’m usually approaching the point where I’ve become somewhat coherent. Not fully awake, less than alert, but past the point of being semiconscious. At this stage I’m fully capable of speaking in short sentences consisting of six to eight one syllable words with an occasional multi-syllabic word or two emerging on my better mornings, which are few and far between, if not non-existent; a rarity at best. This was not one of those mornings! 

Don’t forget, finishing two mugs of coffee means I’ve sloshed down 32 ounces of Joe. That’s a full quart of caffeine-laden liquid coursing through my veins and saturating my brain, though I’m fairly certain it takes a while for it to penetrate the old gray matter. Ingesting that much coffee first thing every morning would send most folks to the emergency room with heart palpitations.   

So, this morning I plodded through my ritual as always, with the coffee and the weather and the grunting. I jumped into the shower. Okay, I didn’t actually jump into the shower; it was more of a slow, deliberate crawl. Kind of like when I was in the military and had to crawl under a long stretch of barbed wire strung about 18 inches above the ground on the obstacle course; slow and easy, head down, so as not to set off a land mine. Of course there are no land mines in my bathroom, but I usually do have my head down. Like I said, it takes me a while to wake up in the morning. 

This morning has been tougher than usual. I feel worn out; I have a dull, lingering headache and I want nothing more than to go upstairs, crawl into bed, pull the covers over my head and drift off into la-la land. But I can’t! Well I suppose I can, but I won’t. I have an obligation. I have to write this commentary. Duty calls! 

So as long as I’m here (more or less), let’s move right along, shall we? 

My inaugural column in the Norton Patch ran two weeks ago today. I’d previously checked out the site from time to time, not so much for the Norton news per se, but more to read some of the content for professional reasons. I read everything I can get my hands on. That’s how I get a lot of my ideas. I glean new material from reading – and observing. 

I must admit that since I’ve been on board with Norton Patch, I’ve been reading much more of the local news on the site; not so much because I have any kind of vested interest in it, but more to try to learn what Norton is all about; what makes the town tick. 

The thing that has jumped out at me since the get-go is the obvious passion of much of the citizenry for town politics. This wasn’t anything new to me. I’d always heard that the Norton Town Meetings were something amazing to behold, like theater. 

Several friends have told me that Town Moderator, Bill Gouveia does a top-notch job. Actually, one friend called Bill’s performance as moderator, "amazing." I’ll confess I don’t fully understand what the Town Moderator does. I’ve never attended a town meeting, and I’m pretty much apolitical. That may be why this whole town politics thing fascinates me. Not as a participant, but as an observer. 

A Moderator may be defined as an arbitrator; that makes sense. So Bill is a go-between; a mediator. A Moderator may also be defined as a referee. Hmm, interesting! So I guess that would mean that part of Bill’s job is to enforce the rules, to keep people in line, to stop them from fighting or strangling one another. But that would never happen in Norton, would it? 

I’d guess that one of the biggest challenges at Town Meeting is getting those who want to speak to adhere to the time limits put upon them. I’m sure every town has at least one vociferous participant who doesn’t want to yield when his or her time has expired. So how is that handled? 

I’d imagine in most cases it starts with the moderator asking the speaker to please finish and take a seat, followed by a slight tap of the gavel. And I guess if that doesn’t do the trick, maybe a little more forceful version of "please sit down" with a few extra hard raps of the gavel. And in the most extreme cases, when all else fails, slamming the gavel so hard that it splinters, followed by a lot of screaming and yelling. 

Small town politics! Kinda warms the cockles of your heart, doesn’t it? And let’s face it; there’s nothing like having your cockles warmed. 

Make it a great week! 

Bob Havey is an Easton-based freelance writer and a consummate trouble-maker. His column, The Way I See It, runs every other Wednesday on Norton Patch and his column, "The View From Here", appears each Tuesday on Easton Patch and on Wednesday on Mansfield Patch.