Divestment Lobbying

I was up early again this morning, but not for the usual reasons of sheep checking or cow chores. Today, with two friends, Gretta and Nora, I went to the State House to lobby our representatives for divestment. It was still dark when we climbed into the car, and we wasted a few minutes being extra careful not to let our black dress pants touch the muddy, salty, grimy Vermont-mud-season car as we climbed in. We stopped in town at Mike’s Store to pick up bagels and muffins to eat in the car. Mike’s is always hopping. People come in early for their coffee and doughnut, mid-morning for their coffee and doughnut, and at lunchtime for a sandwich and doughnut. The early morning crowd is made up of people dressed in Carhartts and camouflage hats with heavy boots. We were certainly the odd ones out with black dress pants and wool coats. We purchased our breakfast and were on the road. We met up with our ride in Woodstock. We were carpooling with our friend, who used to be one of our neighbors, Deb.

            When we arrived at the State House, we got out of the car, once again going to great lengths to avoid getting mud on our pants. We got back into our coats, which was just as difficult as getting out of the car. For anyone who has not had the experience of wearing these coats before, let me explain why. The material does not stretch which means that once you are in the coat, your range of motion is about half of what it was without the coat. You can’t raise your arms and fold your collar, you can’t bend your elbows more than 40 degrees and worst of all, it is quite tricky to reach your buttons to get yourself out of the coat, so once you are in, you are in to stay.

I changed my shoes from my barn boots to black leather flats borrowed from a friend. The shoes were horribly uncomfortable (mostly because they didn’t quite fit) but they made up for this when we entered the State House. As we walked across the marble floor my shoes made an authoritative click with every step I took. I was ready to take on the politicians. I tried to hide the day-pack that I was carrying, since I’m pretty sure that it was a dead giveaway that I am, despite the clicking shoes and tight wool coat, actually not a real businesswoman. My illusion of myself as a politician, tall and commanding, striding along the halls with my shoes clicking, was shattered as one shoe caught on something and I stumbled.

            We arrived at the table where the other people there to lobby about divestment stood. We were given instructions and talking points, and told to be friendly and engage in conversation anyone who walked by.

The extroverts of the group appeared to be in heaven, confidently moving around the room, chatting with the reps about divestment, but I hung back behind the table, which proved to actually be an effective strategy since about an hour in, every single representative in the cafeteria had been surrounded by a group of excitable high-schoolers and told about divestment at least three of four times. They eventually became somewhat short tempered, shooing kids out of their way. But staying behind the table and allowing the representatives to come to me insured that I was able to steer clear of the cranky ones.

There was one last event before we left. John Bartholomew, our representative from Hartland (who also happens to be our neighbor) came by and offered to bring us onto the floor and introduce us. He escorted us to red plush seats along one wall from where we could look out and see the neat rows of fancy chairs and desks where the legislators sat.

We waited for a few minutes until it was our turn to be introduced. He gave a nice introduction and then we headed back out to our tables. We packed up and headed home, all quite tired and ready for a rest.

Back at the house we tumbled out of the car, no longer particularly worried about the mud, and ready to trade the leather shoes and wool coats for barn boots and Carhartts.

The 'don't mess with me' face!