Don't know about anybody else, but, personally, I'm elated that the "presidential thing" has ended. My great joy has not one thing to do with who came out the winner. Truth is, I'm just happy to get my town back again and get out from under the spotlight. Except for the one ass that deliberately ran over a competitor's reporter, the press people have really been pleasant to have around. They came from all over the world, and spent a pile of mony in restaurants and bars and hotels and dry cleaners, etc., etc.

The demonstrators that contending parties bused in were a different story. Fortunately, they were mostly "day-trippers" that didn't stay around long. There was planty of "street theater" to go along with things, with a variety of costumed characters cavorting about the place. The protestors looked like a sizeable mob on the television screen, but in fact were rarely more than a hundred or so in number. Nothing at all like the 80,000 football fans that descended on the town for the FSU/UF game in mid-November.

The down side of it all is the "million plus" tab that local taxpayers will have to cover for all the "services" required by the media circus. My compliments to all of the local law enforcement folks who put in many hours of overtime and did an effective but non-obstrusive job of crowd control. An most especially, I'm very proud of my town and her people, who took it all in stride and helped to make it a positive experience over-all. Not bad for big-time history in the making. The only problem *BG* is that now the whole world knows where Tallahassee is.