The Epic of Biscuit

 

Friends, I’m knocking 1,000 doors this summer. Here’s what happened at door 588. I knock. A woman opens the door. Before she can speak, a small fluffy white dog bolts outside. He bounds across the lawn and disappears across the street. She cries out, “Biscuit! No!” She runs back inside her house, leaving me standing outside. I have said nothing. She reappears with a bag of doggie treats and runs across the street, following Biscuit’s trail. This whole situation is my fault so I follow her. I cross the street and onto someone’s lawn. She calls for Biscuit and waves the bag of treats. She’s starting to panic. I speak for the first time: “I’ll go around back.” She nods. I head into the backyard. It was a house I had knocked about ten minutes earlier. No one had answered, so I had left a leaflet and moved on. I enter the backyard and immediately see a shirtless man sitting in a red lawn chair on a cement patio smoking a cigar. He’s reading my leaflet. I quickly start explaining myself and he waves my leaflet at me like he already understands the whole situation. He doesn’t seem surprised at all. He glances up at me. “Biscuit?” I nod. “Biscuit.” He stands up and walks over to an old ride mower that’s parked against his fence. He climbs into the seat, turns the key, and it starts with a loud rumble. He puts it into gear and takes off at top speed, heading my way. He zooms past me and rounds the corner. I follow. He engages the blades, which takes the machine from a loud rumble to a total racket. Now he’s criss-crossing the mower to different parts of his front yard, cutting diagonal stripes through his grass as he goes. It’s a wild sight. He careens toward a bunch of bushes in the corner, getting close enough to brush up against them. And out pops Biscuit. He bolts back toward his home just as quickly as he had bolted away, running straight past the woman with treats, who now waves at her neighbor with a familiar smile, and he waves back, cigar between his fingers. I walk back across the street, back to Biscuit’s front door, where the woman waits for me. I shake her hand. “Hi. I’m Jeff Jackson. I’m your state Senator.” She says, “Sure, I know you from Facebook. Sorry about Biscuit. You’ve got my vote.” *** So what have we learned? Part of what makes someone a good neighbor is being willing to hop on a ride mower and use it creatively at a moment’s notice.   When your dog is missing, nothing else matters.   Not all campaigning is about television ads. A lot of it is just about showing up and being a real person. I’m ready to do a lot of campaign work on your behalf. Knocking doors, chasing dogs, making my pitch to skeptical strangers — and doing it all in this blazing hot North Carolina summer. I think I’m running this campaign the way you want me to. The only thing I’m asking is that you help chip in to keep the wheels turning. You’ve been amazing so far — our campaign is overwhelmingly funded by small dollar donations — and if you would take a minute to support us, I’d really appreciate it. For Biscuit, Jeff P.S. — Back at it. 600 doors down, 400 to go. PAID FOR BY JEFF JACKSON FOR CONGRESS Jeff Jackson for Congress P.O. Box 470882 Charlotte, NC 28226 United States WWW.JEFFJACKSONNC.COM | INFO@JEFFJACKSONNC.COM