Don Ripley was pounding yard signs into the ground outside a relative’s house in Mukilteo on Monday. The night before had been blustery, but Ripley is convinced that signs supporting President Bush had been intentionally uprooted from the yard.
“They were broken, busted at the ground level. It’s childish,” said Ripley, 41, a Boeing worker, union man and staunch Republican.
It is childish, if vandalism is indeed what happened to the Bush signs. And it’s not too neighborly, is it?
In an election year as heated as any in my memory, signs of our divided nation are everywhere – up the road, across the street, from Edmonds to Darrington.
Yards of neighbors I know only in a cordial hello sort of way bristle with political messages. I find myself looking around my turf in north Everett and thinking, “Oh, they’re voting for (fill in the blank)?”
I am off the hook. Neighbors won’t see opinions in my yard. I’m barred by the rules of my profession from slapping so much as a bumper sticker on my car. When my daughter sneakily stuck a candidate’s pin on her teenage brother’s back during church one Sunday, she got a dirty look and an earful from me.
Gary London taught American politics and government at Everett Community College for 39 years. He said he’s not “out there” with signs or bumper stickers, although “friends and family know my political beliefs.”
“I’ve certainly been hearing more about signs this year, including reports of people destroying them or painting over them,” said London, 65, who retired in June. “The signs show people are more engaged,” he added.
All those signs may test the bonds of friendship, or at least firmly establish the notion of agreeing to disagree.
Ripley happens to live next to Brian Sullivan, the Mukilteo Democrat representing the 21st District in the Legislature.
“He has his beliefs, I have mine. He’s a nice guy, a nice family man. We socialize, we share the same fence, but he belongs to the Democrats,” said Ripley, adding that he’d never vote for anyone missing an “R” behind their name – “not even if it’s my dad.”
Along Mukilteo Speedway, drivers loudly acknowledge a supersized sign on Gunnar Almgren’s property. “They read the sign, honk and wave. Mostly it’s been positive,” said Almgren, 53, a strong backer of John Kerry for president. He’s also heard, from ferry traffic, some shouted comments about the Kerry-Edwards sign.
Almgren, whose late father Peter Almgren was once chairman of the Democratic Party in Snohomish County, said his neighborhood is “politically diverse.” He appreciates thoughtful discourse with friends and family, whatever their political persuasion.
Mary Misner, 63, said she’s “proud of what I believe, but I don’t expect everyone to believe what I do.”
The 4- by 8-foot Bush-Cheney sign at her home on Glenwood Avenue in Everett leaves no room for doubt about how she’ll vote. There’s also a big sign supporting GOP gubernatorial candidate Dino Rossi. She and her husband, Cecil, also fly five American flags.
They see plenty of thumbs-up gestures, but there’s no convincing some neighbors, or even some family members. So she doesn’t try. Misner suspects her granddaughter will cast her vote for Kerry. They’ve agreed to disagree.
A yard display may be big as a boxcar, but respect for differences ought to be bigger still. That’s not to say we should follow the conventional wisdom of never discussing religion or politics, a philosophy of no use at all to London.
“Religion and politics are the most important things we can be talking about,” London said. “It’s an expression of our beliefs and important to our communal lives.”
Who knows? There might even be a little patch of common ground somewhere between those big Bush and Kerry signs.
Columnist Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460 or muhlsteinjulie@heraldnet.com.
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