Friday, February 25, 2005

Blame the Mayor!

The following poem was given to me by Marilyn Robinson. Marilyn is the author of The Sidewalks of Elburn, our new local history book due to be released sometime next month. She found this poem on a microfilm copy of a February 1913 edition of the Batavia Herald. The poet's name was illegible, but whoever it was must have had some personal insight into how it feels to be a local mayor. The poem is called "Blame the Mayor," and it goes like this:
If your hens refuse to lay,
And, you fail to draw your pay.
Blame the Mayor!
If your false teeth break in two,
And, your food you cannot chew.
Blame the Mayor!
(Hey, how'd they know this mayor is a dentist?)
When the water main runs dry,
Or, if someone blacks your eye.
Blame the Mayor!
If your sewer is not laid,
And, your taxes are not paid.
Blame the Mayor!
If the weeds grow on your lawn,
And, your summer cash is gone.
Blame the Mayor!
If you have no overcoat,
And, old winter's got your goat.
Blame the Mayor!
If there's no coal in your box,
And, you catch the smallest pox.
Blame the Mayor!
If your Jersey cow dries up,
And, you lose your pointer pup.
Blame the Mayor!
If your taxes are too big,
And, your neighbor keeps a pig.
Blame the Mayor!
If your street lights do not light,
And, your crossing is a fright.
Blame the Mayor!
If the trains too fast do speed,
As the ordinance they exceed.
Blame the Mayor!
If the engineers are fined,
And, the trains are all behind.
Blame the Mayor!
If you're sore at all mankind,
'Cause your pants are patched behind,
If he doesn't trade with you,
Roast him till he's black and blue,
Give him thunder,
That's his due.
Blame the Mayor!
For me, this poem represents one of the perpetual challenges of public service. How does a local leader stay positive about the future when he or she is surrounded with mostly negative criticism about the past?
I think it is interesting to note that several of the complaints mentioned in the 1913 poem about sewers, street lights, taxes, trains, water mains and weeds are as applicable today, as they were back then. On behalf of my fellow mayors serving in Kane County 92 years later, I have penned this additional updated verse:
If your cable's on the ground,
And, your internet is down.
Blame the Mayor!
If the plows have snowed you in,
Or, the ice is getting thin.
Blame the Mayor!
If your permit's been delayed,
And, there's traffic in your way.
Blame the Mayor!
If he doesn't wave at you,
When his car is passing through,
You can tell him what to do!
It won't be very comical,
Just call Sound-Off in the Chronicle!
Blame the Mayor!
My son Andrew is a Classics major at Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee. I asked him if he had learned of any ancient wisdom concerning our human tendency to always blame others. He told me of the Greek philoshopher Epictetus who said, "When we meet with difficulties, become anxious or troubled, let us not blame others, but rather ourselves, that is, our own ideas about the nature of things."
My brother Larry is an executive at the Q Center in St. Charles. He keeps a sign in his office that reads: " That still doesn't solve the problem, all it does is place the blame."
Finally, my good friend Steve Gliddon printed a t-shirt for me to wear as mayor that read, "It's all my fault! So what do we do now?
I have never really thought of Andrew, Larry or Steve as modern stoic philosophers, yet they each have discovered something on their own that Epictetus tried to tell us years ago. We always get to make a choice between blaming others and solving problems.
The next time you are inclined to blame someone like a local mayor for a problem, ask yourself what problem do you think this person has actually caused? But then go one step further and consider, what could you do to help solve the problem? I assure you that being solution-oriented rather than blame-oriented is an entirely different perspective. And, one that has been worthy of consideration for oh,...the last two thousand years.

posted by Jim Willey at 1:41 PM