I was in 4th grade and the class was holding elections. I was the least popular kid in school because I borrowed my personality from whomever I was sitting by at the time and I had a stupid haircut and wasn't good at sports and wasn't particularly funny and didn't have any money and so on. So naturally I would be a shoo-in for class president.
I'm not sure what inspired me to run for class president. It might have been my mom, who probably encouraged me by leading me to believe I had a really good shot at it. Maybe all the popular kids would get deadlocked with ballot box stuffing and the principal would declare me the winner. I'm not sure.
But I did know you couldn't run for office without having a candidate poster. Everyone was making candidate posters that were flashy or had glitter on them or neon (it was like 1986 or so). I weighed the options and decided to go patriotic. I said I wanted a picture of Uncle Sam (I didn't know him by name at the time) pointing at people and telling them to vote for me.
Since I didn't have any art skills at the time either (and arguably still don't), Mom got a lady from the ward to sketch out Uncle Sam for us on a big piece of white posterboard. It came back incredibly detailed-this fine art pencil sketch that was hyper-realistic. We added the 'I want YOU to vote for Christian' text and submitted it to the school.
My poster was one of about 50, and one of the kids got Kinkos to run him off about 20 professional quality posters with his picture on them. The candidates also gave out candy, but I didn't have any so I gave a kid one of my pencils, telling him that was all I could spare. I didn't receive a single vote-not even my own, having been told by my mom that it's not classy to vote for yourself. But I learned a valuable lesson that day. To not run for office without some kind of professional sponsorship.
4 comments:
I vaguely remember that poster.
Oh, that makes me want to cry! I would have voted for you, really - especially if Uncle Sam was pointing at me.
I don't know if I'm laughing or crying! Perhaps both. Ben had a similar experience in 5th grade. I think he did get his own vote at least though.
Oh there's much more where this came from.
Post a Comment