Member-only story
The Time I Ran For Office
On politics, humiliation and having fun
This is something none of my readers know about me. It is not something I am proud of. It happened so long ago that I very rarely even think about it — except for those times leading up to an election.
Once and only once in my life have I ever run for a political office. I have promised myself that I would never do it again.
The election occurred at the end of my Junior year in high school many decades ago. The winner of the election would be the Senior class president the following year. Right up to the last day of eligibility to sign up to run I was the one and only candidate. It looked like I was going to run for class president unopposed. I started getting nervous. Did I really want to be class president?
And then on that last day to sign up, a new student arrived at our high school. His family had just moved out west from New York State. After finishing enrolling in our high school he asked the principal’s secretary what was going on; that he liked to ‘jump right in.’ Seeing that he was a junior, the secretary told him that the junior class was about to have an election to pick their senior class president for the following year. So before this new kid even attended his first class at our school he signed up to run for Senior class president. I was no…
