By way of reminding readers to cast their ballots on or before next Tuesday, we turn to the Review archives for a bit of pre-election humor:

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I see by the papers it is open season on deer, quail, hunters and politicians.

The other morning, I stood waiting for the bus by Emma Curtis’ home and just across the road were seven of the fattest quail I’ve seen. Been fattening up on the various gardens nearby. They were somewhat tame and were happily feeding by the road for more than 10 minutes as I watched. Couldn’t help but think of the hunters who stalked around and found no shot like I saw there.

Week before last we went huckleberrying and had reasonable luck, much better than last year. But before I’d venture out in the island woods I got me a red cap, sort of jockey style, and kept my head waving out in the open so that no hunter could say I looked like a deer. Of course, there are those like Winslow’s town marshal who would say I could let my shiny dome shine in the sunlight and blind any marksman in sight. (By the by, if you’d like to know where to pick huckleberries, go on the old Port Blakely mail road that swings from Shaw’s Corner up over the hill over Eagle Harbor, the road that comes out by the Oliphants and Clintons. The berries are reasonably thick.)

Next week by this time, most all of the hunting seasons will be over, except that housewives will be hunting Thanksgiving turkeys and a few provident people will have hunted out several Christmas presents. But by next week, the open season on politicians will be over and we’ll be ready to settle down and forget most of our partisan ship. However, the elections come out, they will be over and the results will have to be lived with for some years.

I often wonder why anyone wants to run for office, but there are some who always seem to be candidates. There is a certain satisfaction to titles or positions, but so few of the jobs offer much in salaries. But I’ve yet to hear a politician say that he wants a job because of the pay.

You’d be surprised, or maybe you wouldn’t, at how much politicians look alike. No matter what the party or what the position, they seem to be cast in the same mold and they’re as identical as Al Capp’s schmoos. And around election time they seem to spring up just as fast and friendly. Whenever I see some fellows coming into the office here, I can pick out the politicals. Look for largeness and largess; an overly neat, carefully tailored suit; a face that portrays good living; a flock of cigars in the coat pocket; a winning smile and a glad hand.

And where do they go when the election season is gone, these politicians? In the past two months I’ve talked with maybe two dozen candidates. Some of them I’d met before (two years ago) and others I knew by name. But most of them were strangers who promptly called me by my first name, shook my hand and shoulder like a masseur and inquired into my personal life with all evidences of affection.

But those kind words and salutations will be all I’ll ever see of the politicians until voting time again. Maybe my name will go into some index file to be forgotten until next time, and then I’ll be hunted out as a “contact.” I’ll have to get along without their cheery greetings and big smiles for two years or more.

It is going to be difficult, but I think I’ll live.

– Phil Sisk column, “The Acts of Life,”

Bainbridge Island Review, Oct. 28, 1948