By KAREN PARKER | County Line Editor
Phew, I had only a few days to catch my breath before the Democratic National Convention. You would think I was a political junkie, which I usually am not, but this election cycle is such a train wreck I can’t take my eyes off of it. If you are not watching, you ought to. Historians will write books on it for the next 40 years, and your children and grandchildren will ask you about it.
I wouldn’t say that I watched the GOP Convention gavel-to-gavel, but darn close.
What I learned is thatthe time has come to be scared, very, very scared. Wild-eyed Mexicans are lurking everywhere, shouting Jihadist and planning to blow themselves (and me) sky high on the next truck delivering propane to my house.
Okay, maybe I am confusing the enemies, but you get the idea. And, as we all know, the real enemy is not immigrants or Muslims. It’s a Methodist from Chicago and a former Secretary of State. Surely no one could be responsible for so many policy errors unless she was plotting the overthrow of the United States.
As author and political pundit Fareed Zakaria noted, he had covered many elections in Third World countries where calling for the jailing or even the execution of your opponent is standard fare. But he never thought he would see that in America.
For those of you who expected that a female candidate (also a mother and grandmother) might benefit from chivalry — ha! I cannot recall another convention at which a competing candidate was physically threatened and treated with total contempt and revulsion. For those of us who would prefer a little more civility in our political discourse, it will be a longthree months to the general election.
In the end, the three-ring circus that more closely resembled a Trump Family Reunion managed to run four days without ever giving Americans any definite plans for policy and how it would be accomplished. Just trust me, Donald Trump seemed to say. He is the way, the truth and the life.
My guess is that this week the Democrats will be so engrossed in playing point and counterpoint to the Republicans that they won’t offer much more than vaguely outlined plans either.
As the old saying goes, “If you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bulls**t.”
And I am baffled. So baffled, in fact, that after this convention, you will likely find me wrapped in a blanket, sucking my thumb and watching “The Waltons” reruns on the Inspiration Channel.
Eeesh.
Meanwhile, here at home, we do not fail to note the passing of Paul Stekel. As the manager of the Hillsboro Farmers Co-op, Stekel was a kingpin of the local business community for many years. Despite his elevated position, I don’t believe I ever saw him in a suit and tie.
When I had to go hat in hand to beg for advertising, he greeted me in his windowless office at the back of the store. His office was as dreary as the others in the building, if not more so.
Whatever might be said of Stekel, he grew an insignificant farm co-op to a multimillion-dollar business. And that doesn’t happen without a steady hand on the wheel and a huge investment in time.
There were as many opinions about Paul Stekel as there are varieties of field corn. But one thing I never heard him accused of was lack of interest in the communities the co-op served.
Did he ever turn anyone down for a donation? It was a joke in Kendall that each year he walked out of the Kendall Lions Auction with a mountain of loot, probably some of which he had donated and then bought back.
Once he told me he thought advertising was a waste of time, but he did favor seeing the co-op name on every poster for every civic event in the area. And he was a total softie for FFA.
Despite his somewhat negative view of print advertising, he was our largest account for many years. As one might expect, when the Hillsboro Co-op merged with United, that ended as well. That’s just kind of the way it is.
Stekel was the co-op’s staunchest defender. One year I ran a story about how patrons received no dividends after a bad year. He was furious with me.
Despite all the good he did, some would argue that he overstayed his welcome and ought to have retired long before he did four years ago. Perhaps the business was no longer at its zenith. But clearly mergers are the way, andfew farmers co-ops have been able to avoid it.
Or perhaps Stekel’s drive to make the co-op a vast enterprise was his downfall. The co-op dabbled in everything: plumbing, heating, small-engine repair, convenience and hardware stores, seed, feed, propane, appliance sales and much more. More than once I inquired of Stekel when he planned to start a newspaper.
We note that since the United merger, many of these functions have been stripped away, leaving a leaner company more focused on the farming business.
Paul Stekel is gone, and so are the patronage days, that rite of spring when Stekel circled the room like a broody hen, surveying his kingdom and greeting the masses. It was the place to spin the wheel for a free pound of butter or a pair of gardening gloves, for scrambled eggs in the morning, hot dogs at noon, and for a sense of community all day long.
And that last one is the biggest loss of all.
