Dear Editor,
After Halloween, pumpkins look ridiculous hanging around the front yard. Their once broad grin and bright triangular eyes melt into themselves and give the appearance of a sixties movie star in need of a facelift. The same is true of Christmas trees and electoral signs of hopeful candidates. After their eventful day has passed they’re garbage. Get them out of the yard! Get them out of the house! Get them off the streets! We don’t want to see them anymore!
To rid yourself of a pumpkin you just drop it into the new handy-dandy two-wheeled green cart and TA -DAH it’s gone. Meanwhile the dead tree that was once heralded in high esteem is back on the car roof and off to the firemen who kill it some more by chopping it to mulch. But the election signs are not so easily trashed. No green cart or mulching for them. But they can be used for many projects around the house, or they can be shaped and formed to make a statement in the community.
My Dad, for example, back in the day when election signs were plywood, would support the candidate with party colours closest to our house colour. He didn’t care what the party stood for, he just wanted the plywood to build a crappy shed and fence. Both shed and fence matched in colour and also, unfortunately, vertical stability.
Today’s election signs are now made from plastic coated cardboard that have no shed or fence-building qualities. Why, a big gust of hot air would send them flying! (makes you wonder how they made it through the campaigning).
So, now, one has to get creative to recycle and reuse this free windfall. Such as,...turning the sign around in your front yard and painting “FOR SALE” on it. Very popular choice here in the Lower Mainland.
Or, you could collect the signs and trade them with your friends. “I’ll trade you two Liberals for a Green Party.”
Start your own fence on the 49th parallel. We’re happy to pay for it.
You could use the back of the signs and cut out pumpkins, snowmen and other outdoor decorations for the upcoming holidays. Save them for the summer and make a slip-n-slide for the family. What could give greater pleasure than sliding your butt across the face of that bum you elected now in Victoria.
Why not have your children cut out the face and eyes from the winning candidate’s sign. Then, this Halloween, have them trick or treat as your riding’s elected official. For most of the homeowners that’s as close as they’ll ever get to seeing him or her again.
No! Wait, with that costume who knows what they’ll bring home in their trick or treat bag.
Use the back of the sign to write your appraisal of the candidate completely in your native tongue with a rating from One-10 at the bottom. Place the sign on the lawn at city hall and let them figure out if it’s good or bad or the price of a dozen hot wings downtown.
Be sure to save a least one election sign of the person you elected to represent you in Victoria. And after a period of time (sometimes short, sometimes a little longer) when they screw up on an issue you hold dear, paint over all of the sign except for their smiling face. Then again, completely in your own tongue write “I put this bum in Victoria and all I got was this crumby sign!”
Bob Niles
Richmond
