I had not wanted to come. For one thing, the incivility of our national election season has turned me sour on anything political. For another, the Saturday morning was beautiful after rain drenched days, and I could think of a hundred other things I either needed to do or wanted to do. I went anyway—to the public meeting with my state legislators. Sheer civic duty and nothing else.

Safe to say that the majority of the attendees had voted for some one other than the three legislators. This more sparsely populated end of the country tends to vote differently than the other two districts and is often outvoted.

The local telephone company (yes, we still have a local one) had provided their meeting room for the event. The local newspaper editor emceed.

The audience listened politely to the speeches, occasionally even applauding. A few of the following questions were pointed, but nobody screamed or insulted anyone. The legislators actually appeared to give thoughtful answers, leaving aside the canned jargon.

We broke up into three groups, one for each legislator. Individuals shared concerns. I asked questions about my pet subject, campaign financing reform. We all had our say.

As I looked around at my neighbors, the memory of a past absentee ballot reaching me in a country with no elections flickered through my mind.

We lived in other countries that held sham elections. Everyone knew the ruling party would win, as it always had. No one would have bothered to show up at a gathering like this if one were offered. Besides, probably not a good idea to offend the governing elite with criticism.

In my epiphany, I wanted to ask my fellow participants: Do you know what you have? Do you know how precious this process is?