One blog I don’t read as much as I should is Polygon, the Dancing Bear, being the episodic musings of Lawrence Kestenbaum. Mr. Kestenbaum is county clerk for Washtenaw county, in which Ann Arbor is situated. I remember seeing left-over Kestenbaum for Clerk lawn  signs when I first arrived in Ann Arbor. He is a first term county clerk, but seems to have raised himself for the job. He breathes politics and liquid election-juice runs in his veins. He writes interesting and illuminating blog posts. He writes well. During the last round of US legislative elections, his positive assessments of the security and integrity of the local polling system did much to soothe my fear and loathing of the apparent deterioration of American electoral mechanisms. Recently he forensically reassembled the voter list for the Michigan ratification of the repeal of prohibition, for fun. He also maintains the Political Graveyard, and writes wonderful and encouraging memos to his staff at the county clerks office. I would like to receive such memos, and so from now on I will assume that they were also intended for me. For example:

Today is the 198th birthday of Abraham Lincoln. I’m guessing we’ll be hearing a lot more about him as we get closer to his 200th.

Lincoln was a lawyer; since he traveled a great deal for his practice, the county clerks and court clerks of Illinois (our long-ago predecessors) surely had a lot of contact with him during his career. From accounts of people who knew him, he didn’t look majestic or impressive. Elihu Washburne wrote:

No one who saw him can forget his personal appearance at that time. Tall, angular and awkward, he had on a short-waisted, thin swallow-tail coat, a short vest of the same material, thin pantaloons, scarcely coming to his ankles, a straw hat and a pair of brogans with woolen socks.

No doubt some of the court clerks he dealt with regarded him with pity or contempt. But this awkward and poorly dressed young man went on to become the greatest president in American history.

There’s no telling which of our customers might one day do great things. Indeed, some of them already have. Washtenaw County has more than its share of residents who have written novels, invented tools, discovered medicines, composed music, engineered bridges, or advanced human knowledge and progress in a myriad of ways.

And even if they haven’t become nationally prominent in their fields, a great many more are unsung heroes for their devotion to their families, for overcoming personal handicaps, for healing the sick, for fighting fires and crime, for fixing our great networks of pipes and wires and roads, for service in our military, for helping make this a great community.

Sometimes we know our customers and the things they have helped make possible through their lives and work. More often, we don’t know just how much someone has done. And they themselves don’t know how much they will ultimately do for the country, for the community, even for us as individuals.

Treating each and every customer with courtesy and respect is a small but important way to show our appreciation for all those past and future contributions.

Let’s have a great week!

OK.