I picked up the phone and the operator said to wait for Congressman Scott Garrett who will speak and answer questions live. I stayed on the line thinking "live? He wants to speak to me and answer my questions? Oh, but I can't think of any questions I could ask him. I hope I won't be embarassed." After a brief moment, I heard the Congressman talking to a caller, answering a question. I was relieved that he was not calling me personally. A lot of people's phones had been ringing, not just mine. When he finished answering the caller, he said that he is talking to us from Washington D.C. and that we could ask him questions live by touching two numbers on the phone. Now came my utter astonishment at the idea of a town hall meeting by phone where you can either participate or just listen. I had never heard of such a thing. What an original concept. The callers were from mixed political leanings and were speaking coherently, sometimes even making sense to me, the politically quite skeptic. It was hard for me to focus on what I don't understand and a few questions went over my head. I hang in there. I liked the sound of it all. Do not forget that I have been recording a vocal album and my hearing is very discriminatory lately. Clean pronounciation, perfect grammar, good sounding voice and knowledge, he is a moderate Republican. He avoided a few questions by side stepping them but he answered most of them.
He even said to dial the corresponding number to the one out of three problems that we face as a country which we think is the most important and then gave the results of the poll at the end of the meeting. We don't want to borrow money from other countries.
I held the phone to my ear for a good thirty minutes and enjoyed the fact that I am in America, in New Jersey's Bergen County and I am listening to my representative congressman speak to me live over the phone from Washington D.C. Only in America.
