THE MIRACLE ON MAIN STREET

I have to say I think I witnessed a miracle on Main Street today, that's 550 Main Street, Hartford City Hall to be exact. As if that wasn't enough, I was lucky enough to witness this miracle in the presence of my newly adopted grandmother Prenzina Holloway. Gramma was ranting about something and kept saying "no one intimidates me, I don't care what color they are". I'm not really sure what she meant, but she kept looking at me as she said it.

Gramma, weren't the Christmas presents enough?

Anyway, back to the miracle. As the previous blog entry said, on January 27, 2010 at 4:00PM the deadline had expired for the submission of petitions to qualify for the March 2, 2010 Democratic Town Committee elections. Unfortunately for team "Arena" and team "Giles" discrepancies were noted, essentially clerical errors that none the less would invalidate those petition sheets that were incomplete.

Now I've always wondered how miracles are actually validated and after today it is all much clearer to me. Apparently on Wednesday just before the 4:00PM deadline for any changes or submissions, someone had photocopied the petitions clerical errors and missing signatures and everything else. Well, for some reason after the mistake was realized the documents in question left the City Clerks vault and made their way back to the Democratic Registrar's Office. Apparently the documents arrived in the Registrar's hands with mere minutes to spare.

Now here is where the miracle begins. Even though the circulators who had failed to sign the petitions were not in the Registrar's Office, she apparently laid her hands on the stack of forms and by some miraculous power, within seconds all of the missing signatures appeared on every single document in question. I know it happened within seconds, because if the documents were changed after 4:00PM it would have been illegal.

And as anyone who follows City Hall knows, nothing illegal would ever happen in that building.

Myself and Grandma were there when the petitions were turned back over to City Clerk John Bazzano, and lo and behold, as I turned over page after page, the documents that just 2 days before were verified incomplete, were now 100% complete. I knew it had to be a miracle, things like this just don't happen on their own.

I guess I'm an optimist because I prefer to see the glass as half full and I want to believe that a miracle has happened. If it was closer to Christmas I could almost be convinced that it was a gift to team "Arena" and team "Giles" from Santa Claus, but we all know he is back at the North Pole now. And after what the Arena's have done with their taxes, Santa might just be giving them a bag of coal next year.

But you'll always get the pessimists who see the glass as half empty. They might claim that the signatures that suddenly appeared are the result of fraudulent activity on the part of certain individuals wanting to win an election at all costs with no regard for the law, integrity or honesty. Did they even consider that the copies showing the missing sections that would invalidate them could also be part of the same miracle and the copy machine deleted those sections?

Well, it's time for a nap, it's not easy witnessing miracles, not to mention spending time with Grandma. Besides, Easter is fast approaching and I need to get ready for the Easter Bunny, not to mention St. Patrick's Day and the leprechauns.

I believe, I believe, I believe.