Tomorrow will make five years since Courtney and I said “I do” at the altar and began a journey that has been filled with ups and downs in every part of our lives.

Since this is a political column and not a romance novel, I won’t go into the mushy stuff. However, I will tell you that in those five years, Courtney and I have been involved in more political campaigns than most people encounter in their entire lives. The latest count was twenty campaigns!

Have they all been winning campaigns? Of course not…especially when it was my name on the ballot. Nevertheless, we enjoyed our participation in the process and refused to merely sit on the sidelines as other people chose our elected leaders for us.

We have met thousands of amazing people – some who walked along side of us during a campaign but most of them were people whose door we knocked or hand we shook in an effort to get to know the people who we and our candidates hoped to represent. Being involved in a campaign is sort of like being a pageant queen. A pageant queen gets to visit festivals, meet people, eat great food, and take pictures of everything they do.

During the course of twenty campaigns, Courtney and I have danced at nursing homes, walked in every parade imaginable from the Chackbay firefighter parade to Towapasah in Reserve, hosted ice cream parties, walked in ditches to see what the resident was talking about, eaten every kind of jambalaya and gumbo imaginable, and had the best BBQ ever in a gas station.

Some people think wearing a political shirt, sporting a bumper sticker, and waving signs on the corner is strange and pointless because it doesn’t make a difference on Election Day. Well, I think it is no stranger than painting your garage purple and gold, having a tiger paw hanging out of your trunk, or screaming at a TV screen during a football game. When the votes are coming in on Election Night, a political activist gets the same nervous feeling that both the LSU and Alabama fans had during overtime last weekend.

Is being involved in the political world easy? No. It is exciting to know that your involvement has made a difference in the lives of others. Yes. In five years, Courtney and I can say that we have tasted the sweetness of victory, the disappointment of defeat, and the honor of thousands of friendships.

The last bite…

Speaking of LSU vs. BAMA, I will say that another common ground, even I can appreciate, between football and politics is the amount of food available at a football game party! I watched the LSU game at Chris Cancienne’s house and didn’t stop eating for four hours (thanks to overtime)! Mr. Jason cooked a mean red bean gumbo (with boiled eggs on the side) and jambalaya. Ms. Gina prepared a huge platter of hummus that she served with warmed wheat pita and topped off with Aimee’s secret ingredient. We finished the night off with a homemade cookie cake decorated with purple and gold icing, of course. I give hummus topped with grapes 5 (out of 5) crumbs!

Buddy Boe, a resident of Garyville, owns a public relations and program management company and is well known on the local political (and food) scenes. His column appears Wednesdays in L’Observateur.