{"id":18970,"date":"2013-11-15T06:31:54","date_gmt":"2013-11-15T11:31:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/?p=18970"},"modified":"2013-11-12T18:24:20","modified_gmt":"2013-11-12T23:24:20","slug":"7-years-ago-return-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2013\/11\/15\/7-years-ago-return-day\/","title":{"rendered":"7 years ago: Return Day"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

November 15, 2006, here on slacktivist:\u00a0Return Day<\/a><\/p>\n

Every two years, two days after Election Day, Delawareans gather on The Circle in Georgetown to hear the official reading of the election returns. That\u2019s anachronistic these days, with the results available online as soon as the votes are counted, but the event has come to serve another function. Candidates \u2014 winners and losers \u2014 ride together in a parade and bury a ceremonial hatchet.<\/p>\n

Riding next to each other in horse-drawn carriages, the candidates are forced to be civil to one another \u2014 civil in every sense. This is what makes democracy work. It\u2019s not just the voting and the honest counting of votes. It\u2019s also the willingness of the defeated to get up and go, to clear out their desks without coercion and to accept, along with everyone else, that these are our new leaders (at least until the next election).<\/p>\n

I like the idea of this very much, and I agree with the editors of the Bethany Beach Wave<\/em> that \u201cWe could use a nationwide Return Day.\u201d<\/p>\n

That call for a nationwide Return Day isn\u2019t really realistic. Georgetown\u2019s celebration is too off-the-beaten path, at this point, to expect it to be duplicated on The Mall in D.C.<\/p>\n

But if I were the mayor of some struggling county seat \u2014 somewhere like Clearfield, Pa., for example, or St. Johnsbury, Vt. \u2014 I\u2019d look into embracing a local version of this tradition. What\u2019s not to like? It\u2019d be good for the local economy, good for local pride, good for civil society.<\/p>\n

Plus, it\u2019s a party. The Georgetown event is a bit like Groundhog Day in Punxsutawney, Pa., with the top-hatted pomp providing a respectable sheen of tradition for two days of revelry. I\u2019ve been to Clearfield. They could use<\/em> a party.<\/p>\n

Get enough county seats doing this every two years and eventually the idea of a national Return Day wouldn\u2019t be so far-fetched.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If I were the mayor of some struggling county seat — somewhere like Clearfield, Pa., for example, or St. Johnsbury, Vt. — I’d look into embracing a local version of this tradition. What’s not to like? It’d be good for the local economy, good for local pride, good for civil society.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":141,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18970","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n7 years ago: Return Day<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"If I were the mayor of some struggling county seat -- somewhere like Clearfield, Pa., for example, or St. Johnsbury, Vt. -- I'd look into embracing a local version of this tradition. What's not to like? 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A former managing editor of Prism magazine, Fred worked in the parachurch nonprofit world for a decade and then for a decade in the newspaper biz. He began blogging in 2002. In 2003 he began writing a review of the best-selling Left Behind series. Eight years later he still hasn\u2019t finished reviewing the second book of that series and the experience has left him a broken shell of a man. Fred knows the difference between the possessive \u201cits\u201d and the contraction \u201cit\u2019s,\u201d and he is acutely bothered when others mistakenly confuse the two, yet he himself just kind of instinctively types the apostrophe whether or not it belongs there. Some feel this is his greatest hypocrisy, but those who know him better know better. He\u2019s guilty of much greater hypocrisies. Jesus loves Fred far more than Fred loves Jesus, but he at least has the decency to recognize the unfairness of that lopsided relationship and he has long wished that he were better at maybe kind of sort of doing something more to correct that some day. A Baptist, an amateur, a Gen-Xer, a Gemini and a Mets fan, Fred lives in Southeastern Pennsylvania with his wife and two teenage daughters. 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