The World's First Recount

   This had never happened before - certainly not at Heston Elementary School. This was new. 

You had to be there. I had been elected President of my class every term now for two years. 

There was absolutely no question that I would be elected again. My little girl friend assured me 

with a wink of her pretty little eye that it was in the bag. She had a lot of pull. She was very

pretty. 

   I began our weekly meeting as usual - old business - new business, and of course our new 

election came up. No problem. I requested by show of hands how many of our classmates

preferred myself as President of our class again. A much smaller number than usual raised

 their hands. "Hmmm", I thought as I counted perhaps 12 students. Next. I asked by show of 

hands who preferred my opponent as our next President. "Whoosh", there was .an audible 

excitement and what seemed a small breeze created by hands reaching high up into our 

classroom. I counted carefully about 16 hands. "What", I thought, is going on? I didn't know 

what to do.

   Surely, there was some kind of mistake. I reached for an answer and said: "I think I counted

wrong - let's try that again". I actually said that or something very close to that - right off the 

top of my head. Don't forget, this was fifth grade and, as far as I could tell, totally uncharted 

territory. I learned something that day. Something I will never forget, and I'm writing this so 

you don't make the same mistake. Not ever - ."Don't ever question the way people vote".

   I asked the students who wanted me to be class President to raise their hands again. This

time about 8 students meekly raised their hands.You guessed it, my opponents votes were

about 22 - including my girlfriend. They all made the nastiest faces at me you ever saw - no 

winks - no smiles and that was that. 

   I won the rest of the elections till sixth grade was over and we graduated. I found out later 

what it probably was. The boy who won was a really good guy and deserved a term to be 

President of the class. He really liked that. I should have known better.

 

                                                     Election Coincidences

     There are two major coincidences in my life which beg mentioning here. One is that I attended 

Wharton (a college at Penn) at about the same time as Donald Trump. I actually only took one course at 

Wharton - it was required that engineering students like myself had to have two liberal arts courses - non 

technical courses - in order to graduate, so I signed up for a course in "Criminology" at Wharton. Two It 

Things I remember that impressed me there. One, was that all the crime statistics from Chicago hadn't 

been accepted by the FBI since the prohibition, Al Capone, days. The other was a story our instructor 

told us about the class being held up with guys holding bananas in their hands. This was to show us the 

problems about witnessing crimes. No one reported the bananas! This made us laugh at the time! I look 

at today's election problems and still smile at these memories.

     The other coincidence I recall f? rom earlier days was from elementary school where I had been 

elected four times in a row as president of our class. Here I was at our fifth term, conducting a new 

election, which I assumed would have the same results. No such luck. In complete bewilderment, I 

counted the raised hands of kids who voted for my opponent and then myself. What? No way! My 

opponent had more votes!!  So, I told them that we would do this over again (recount?) and we did. 

This time, my opponent had many more hands than before - which goes to show you what happens when

you question democratic opinion. Ha Ha on me! Well I lost that election, but went on to win the next too

and we graduated.