One truly does learn something new every day sitting in this chair.
Consider the fact that, until yesterday, I had no idea there was a town named “Arlington” in South Dakota.
But there is; a hamlet of about 900 people toward the easternmost part of that state.
How did I learn this? Because a nice person from South Dakota sent me a list of students who had won the state’s poetry competition, and it included a few from Arlington.
But it was the wrong Arlington, as I pointed out (equally nicely) to the lady who had sent them. (She’s an early riser: I sent my note to her at 7:15 a.m. our time, 5:15 a.m. her time, and she replied with a cheerful “Rats!” just a few minutes later.)
Many, many moons ago I did an article where I road-tripped to a number of Arlingtons across the fruited plain, mostly in the Midwest and the big one down in Texas. I also know there are Arlingtons in the state of Washington as well as in Massachusetts. But had never heard of Arlington, S.D.
Some day in retirement (and who can ever tell when that day will come?), maybe I’ll road trip to all the remaining Arlingtons on my bucket list.
AND A SIDE NOTE: The town of Arlington, S.D., has a weekly paper. What is its name? “The Sun”! When was it founded? 1885, or exactly a half-century before our predecessor, the Northern Virginia Sun, in 1935.
GETTING AN EARLY START: Monday night’s Arlington County Republican Committee meeting featured Eddie Garcia, who is making a run for the Senate seat currently held by Tim Kaine.
Give Garcia, who is not quite a known quantity in the Virginia political world, credit for getting started early. One guesses the GOP field will be large; whether the eventual nominee will be able to knock off Kaine – who seems just likable enough, to borrow from Barack Obama’s description of Hillary Clinton, to eke through victory after victory despite not exactly being Mount Rushmore material.
Being the only reporter in the room – naturally – it was no surprise that as the meeting broke up, Mr. Garcia came over to chat me up. I’m always pleasant (Mama McCaffrey raised me right) but I told him that I had 13 Arlington races and countless Fairfax ones to deal with in 2024, so I would not be giving the least bit of thought to 2024 until the very end of the year.
“Then,” I said, “I’ll be all over the 2024 race.”
But there’s a long time between now and then. Heck, there’s a long time between now and this afternoon.
– Scott McCaffrey