My pal Pat McGuire is a newly elected State Senator in Illinois, and he invited me and Scout and her pal Samantha Green and Sam's dad Jason to the state capitol of Springfield to see how business is done.
As it is with kids of all ages, the train ride was the best part.
But the girls got to spend three hours on the Senate Floor, actually voting on bills (as directed by Pat, of course). I wasn't permitted to film in there, but halfway through, the novelty became a routine, and the kids started to look comically like the wizened "Senates" that they were pretending to be.
As I told Pat afterwards, you never know what your kids are going to remember and discard, and you only hope they remember useful experiences.
In Springfield, Jason and I were happy to know for sure, for once, that we were making a memory that our kids would always draw on.
A memory, and a formative theory about elected officials:
That they're all just like Pat.
And if they're not, they should be.
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