There was an election in Greenbelt, MD in 1977. Citizens were voting for the City Council; all incumbents. It took only 50 signatures on a petition to challenge them, and I had some free time, so I became the only fool who took on the group. I say fool now, but at the time the aura of being an elected official clouded my thinking. Fool sounded like Hero, and Election sounded like Easy. Little did I know there was more to this than gathering signatures.

The names were easy. I worked from 3:00 – Midnight at the University of Maryland. Getting up in the morning and traipsing around the town checking penmanship was not such a task. In just a few days of knocking on doors, the deed was done. My name was added to the ballot. Hero, here I come. My undergraduate degree was in Political Science. Not really surprising, huh? Now, to put it to the test. Let’s see what the books taught me.

The City of Greenbelt is a fine community. I was a fairly new resident at the time and must admit . . . . naive. There weren’t many apartment units then. Greenbelt started in 1937 as a cooperative community; part of the New Deal. My residency there was because I was a student, with a family who needed a place nearby the campus. Prior to 1974 we were living in Suitland, and I was attending Prince George’s Community College. After transferring to U of MD, the commute became a bit much. Fortunately, I was driving a Chevy Vega, which got pretty good gas mileage, even though it is considered one of the worst cars ever built. It was red, with a damaged left headlight, that was never fixed. Moving to Greenbelt made sense.

After filing the signatures with the proper authorities, I was officially a candidate. The campaign was a go, and I was determined to win a seat. Why not? I could govern. Being elected was just a matter of getting people to like me and making them aware of my desire to improve their lives. A series of mistakes (Comedy of Errors, so to speak) was in my immediate future. “I was going down,” and didn’t even know it.

The contest was not Republican vs. Democrat. Prince George’s County has always been heavily Democrat; even to this day. The Greenbelt City Council election of 1977 pitted Mishkan Torah Synagogue against Saint Hugh’s Church/School, and I was not a member of either. My daughter did attend St. Hugh’s School, because it was the nearest and least costly private school to our apartment, and like I wrote earlier, I was a student; therefore, pretty much broke. But St. Hugh’s did not require us to be members of the church.

It wasn’t a particularly bitter campaign, but sidewalk maintenance was needed in front of both buildings, and that was the underlying campaign issue (not to mention the normal hatred of competing religions). Remember earlier when I mentioned my naivete? Well, keep reading.

My wife during this period was my first. She’s the mother of my kids. Within this post, I will mention wife, and she’s who I mean. Nothing bad, but just a point of reference.

The first thing I did was take out a loan for $350 from the Greenbelt Credit Union to use in my campaign. I needed to print posters, advertise in the Greenbelt News Review, make fliers and other essential electioneering stuff. It doesn’t seem like much of a fund, but it was sufficient. Fortunately, I worked in a place with a copy machine and friends willing to help, so duplication of fliers was at the expense of the U of MD (shhh, don’t tell them). I was also writing a column for the sporadically published Consumer’s Friend, which was a free paper distributed to apartment residents in Prince George’s County. The sole purpose of the paper was to advocate for Tenants rights and the editor was an attorney who often lobbied the county on behalf of apartment dwellers.

I got my literature together and started banging on doors. One of the incumbents, Charlie Schwan, who I liked, had deposited his materials in the screen door of one of the homes I eventually approached. My intention was to be a nice guy, so when I knocked on the door and the resident answered, I handed her Charlie’s brochure, mentioning he had left it, and gave her my stuff, too. She was cordial and collected the pieces of propaganda and wished me well. The next day I received a phone call from a fairly influential lady (in her mind) chastising me for working for Charlie Schwan. Her garbled threats were something like, “You’ll never get elected by the Catholics in this town if you support Charlie Schwan.” Charlie was a member of Mishkan Torah, and apparently, I was thought to be on the side of St. Hugh’s, so she was noting my disloyalty for my permanent record.

A couple of days later I received a call from a fellow who wanted me to announce legalization of Marijuana within Greenbelt as part of my platform.  Bear in mind this was 1977. I was in favor of it but knew it would kill my campaign. The constituency diversity of Greenbelt was showing.  I had to tend to other issues.  Everything was set, now on to the actual campaign.