As always, there is plenty going on in Greenfield!
The Greenfield Sportsman’s Club’s annual turkey raffle is this Friday, Nov. 18, at the Meetinghouse. The auction and raffle start at 5:30 pm, and there will be silent auction items on display. Funds from this event will go toward stocking fish for the annual Kids Fishing Derby – apparently, the price of trout has been affected by inflation as much as everything else – and support other outdoor activities for Greenfield youth. In a future column, I’ll be interviewing members of the club and getting a tour of their beautiful property on Savage Road.
Just another reminder, the Greenfield Fire Department’s “Fire and Ice” event is Dec. 3. Please let the fire department know if you would like to have a float in the parade. There are also a few spots still available in the Friends of the Greenfield Community Meetinghouse Festival of Trees at the Meetinghouse from 2 to 4 p.m. Larry Gilbert will be playing holiday music again, and there will be homemade Christmas cookies and cocoa.
New this year, five winning trees will be displayed at Stephenson Library for the month of December. Please email greenfieldmeetinghouse@gmail.com if you would like to enter a tree in the festival.
As everyone is aware, we had an election last week. Greenfield, like many towns, had a record-high turnout, with around 80 new voters registered on Election Day.
Interestingly, this year in Greenfield we had two ladies from Cambridge, Mass., who identified themselves as “election observers” come and watch our entire election and the ballot-counting. Mike Borden from the Greenfield Select Board told me these observers were amazed by how uneventful and friendly our election was. Mike told me he was not sure what these ladies expected, but it sounded like they were on the watch for people trying to protest the results of the election or the election process.
Who knows what they are saying about New Hampshire down in Cambridge? Obviously, someone thought things might go completely haywire up here. The observers were particularly fascinated by our ballot-counting process. Coming from a city, they were not aware that in small towns like Greenfield, we still rely on volunteers to count the votes by hand.
We are very lucky in Greenfield; very few people in our country get to sit in the same meetinghouse built by the town founders and count votes by hand much like they did 227 years ago. (If you have never counted ballots in your town, I highly recommend you do it at least once, as it is actually fun and a chance to meet new people!)
The observers actually looked a little stunned at the joking and laughing happening in the Meetinghouse as the volunteers, with both parties represented at each table, sat down together to tally nearly 1,000 ballots. There were definitely a lot of laughs at my table. We were almost the slowest group in the room, but we got there in the end.
When the ladies from Cambridge left, they profusely thanked our Select Board members and election officials for such a delightful evening, saying they were astonished at the calm atmosphere and civility during our election. It is good to know that in our small town, we are able to put politics aside to make the democratic process happen and get the job done.
People really do make an effort to get along for the good of everybody. Maybe Cambridge, and the rest of the country, should take some lessons from Greenfield.
Please email me at jesstimm17@gmail.com with Greenfield news and events or ideas for this column, and thanks for reading!