Gee. That guy sure looked familiar. There was the signature and
scruffy looking gray beard but instead of a suit and tie, he was decked
out in blue jeans and a winter parka. And he was sitting in the very
last row when normally he was sitting at the head of the room
addressing lawmakers.
Now he addressed no one and just listened.
It was Robert Emerson, the former Democratic lawmaker who never saw
a tax hike he didn't like and most recently he was the budget director
for the last governor…what was her name, anyway?
Seems as though Emerson misses the smell the grease paint and the
roar of the crowd.
"Sure. Yeah," he tells a correspondent who use to cover Emerson's
every move.
He was there is listen in on the debate over saving the Detroit
Public Schools. Emerson is now unemployed as he becomes one of the
statistics that he use to include in his budget work. Oh, he will
eventually get a job but appears in no hurry to land one.
That was going to happen at the end of January he reports, but now
looks like the end of the month is the revised target date for getting
off the jobless roles.
In the meantime, he's watching the new governor's messy budget
situation from the sidelines for a change. But when he is not attending
hearings, what does he do to fill the time as he decompresses from his
intense days in the capitol?
Gig-saw puzzles.
Sure enough. Down in his basement he concentrates on tiny little
pictures and tries to put them in the right place…not much of a change
from what he did before.
He boasts he just finished a puzzle about a "hot air balloon
festival."
Hot air?
Looks like he just can't get away from government work.