My father and my mother used to help out our local alderman during election times.  Not just for when he was running for alderman, but for the few times he ran for state’s attorney and lost.  They’d pass out literature in the neighborhoods and make phone calls and that sort of thing.   I know the alderman’s office really well.  I was there all the time as a kid.  There’s all these directories.  A Bucktown Chicago neighborhood directory, a directory of all the train lines, a downtown directory, and more.  There are also all these brochures about health and safety.  Whenever my parents were there, I’d sit down in the lobby and start reading through all those things.  My parents sometimes had me run up and down people’s front stairs to put literature about the upcoming elections for the alderman into their mailboxes.  They just assumed I’d go on helping them when I got older as well.  But when I got older, I had work and school and just didn’t have time to be going out there, doing work for an alderman I wouldn’t vote for.  Yeah, he was a likable guy, but he never did anything for the neighborhoods.  He’s made a lot of promises he never kept.