Well I got back alive, (barely) from my trek to Rochester, New Hampshire Thursday night in a blinding snowstorm to see Barack Obama speak.

I started out around 1:50 p.m. and my plan was to go to Manchester, New Hampshire and stop there for a while. When we got to around Exit 10 on the Mass Pike, the sky started to darken and snowflakes started flying.

By the time we got to 495 North, it was a full blown storm. The trees were loaded with snow, the sky was a dark purple. I got to the New Hampshire line around 4:30 p.m. and the traffic was backed up well into Massachusetts past Tyngsboro. Everyone drove slow, but in all my travels that night, the highways were completely clear of snow–no ice–no slush. The secondary roads were another story however.

I don’t travel to New Hampshire that much in the winter. Our house is closed by the end of the fall. But it seems New Hampshire and Massachusetts must use a ton of salt on the roads. I constantly saw plows on the highways. There must have been over 7 inches of snow and if you did not look at the sky or the ground on the side of the highway, you never would have known it had snowed. Connecticut TAKE NOTE.

The secondary roads were all snow covered but passible. You had to drove slow on some of the back roads and Rt. 125 to Rochester which as I found out the hard way because I have map reading challenges was not “near” Manchester where my son lives, but near MAINE!!. It is right on the line–look it up. I thought I was driving to the ends of the earth that night, but it was worth it to see Sen. Obama whom I got a chance to speak with for a few minutes.

Apparently I got a little too close too fast to Sen. Obama for the Secret Service, and they pushed me away momentarily, but I got right up there and moved into the front to be able to speak with him.

Sadly, Sen. Obama has Secret Service protection because some people think he should not be running for President because of his skin color. I wonder how his skin color would factor into things if they were bleeding to death and he was the only person around whose blood type matched theirs!!

I have posted my video of Sen. Obama speaking for several minutes about the war in Iraq, the current administration, and health care issues on the home page under “Featured Media.”

We arrived at 7:10 p.m. and Sen. Obama made his appearance in Rochester around 7:45 p.m. The event ended at 9:30 p.m. We arrived in Cheshire at approximately 2 a.m.

It snowed all the way up and all the way back. We finally hit dry pavement around Willington, Ct. Thank God. Then the old pedal went to the metal.

While I was waiting for the shuttle van to take us back to the parking lot in Rochester, we got talking to a woman who asked us where we lived. We told her we had a house in New Hampshire (and an apartment), but we lived in Cheshire.

I am still thinking about what the first words were out of this woman’s mouth and she did not say it in a mean way. She said to me “oh, isn’t that the town that had those home invasion murders?

As I was standing outside the venue waiting for the van, I felt a chill go up my spine. People still remember that event in July. For that woman, when I said Cheshire, Connecticut, that is what she thought of.

As time passes, so will this event to most people. But in Cheshire, we should never forget and try to learn from this tragedy. We must all re-examine ourselves, our lives, the society we live in.

My wish: I hope something positive comes out of this tragedy for Cheshire. I hope we will be known as the town that got the toughest Three Strikes Law in the country passed.

So if I ever run into someone from out of state again and they ask where I am from and I say Cheshire, Connecticut, they will say, “Oh isn’t that the town that had the toughest Three Strikcs law in the country passed?

Now to switch gears a bit, I noticed our local community paper had a story on the hiring of two new police officers. Well again, I also noticed there were NO women hired. I wonder why?

And from what I understand there were no minority applications either. But at least the Herald ran a front page story on the hirings. You never would have seen that several years ago, I know. The town used to treat police hirings like the Interregnum at the Sistine Chapel. You only know when something transpires when the white smoke comes out of the chimney.

I still don’t like some of what goes on. I don’t like one person making all the decisions. It has nothing to do with who is making the decisions-Lou Zullo. I really don’t even know this man so it is not personal. I wouldn’t like it if my husband was making all personnel decisions.

I believe this is a job for the Public Safety Commission. I mean, this time in the Herald they had all the new hires’ qualifications, albeit one was a relative of another police officer. But I know these two men are qualified. That is not the point. The point is I would like to see several people, not one, making this important decision.

The people that run this town have a phobia about this-but hopefully this year we will make headway with expanding the powers of the Public Safety Commission to oversee police and fire and all emergency personnel.

All the people who pay taxes in this town, excluding me, because I don’t pay any, have the right to know what is going on with all departments and how time is spent.

 We don’t put questions in writing especially to the police department or any department  for that matter. The taxpayers have a  right to know when they ask. 

Whether we ask at the Town Council meeting or Board of Ed, or Planning and Zoning–any department-we deserve the answers right then and there.

Ok, let’s end here and go finish our Holiday Shopping.

P.S. For you Mitt Romney fans out there, (I know Matt Hall loves Mitt), will be appearing in Londonderry, (it really is NEAR Manchester), Saturday, Dec. 22 around 4 p.m. The weather should be partly cloudy.