Friends: As most of you know by now MrOPC has been sent to the penalty box and via his post there has informed us he has no intention of returning to Covers. It is my sincere hope both Covers management and MrOPC will reconsider. I did not view all the posts involved but there did seem to be enough evidence that time in the penalty box was warranted and justifiable. OK. So be it.

This year's political race has been one of the most passionate and divisive ever. The issues are compelling and most folks believe we can not afford to be wrong. In the heat of debate things sometimes degenerate and at some point in our lives all of us have been in the position of having said things we probably should not have and probably wouldn't had we simply put our words together and then reviewed them 24 hours later, when the heat and passion of the moment have passed.

Today is Election Day and the winners will cheer, but hopefully they will remember that their period of power may be as short as two years, when a new congress will be elected and could be of a different mindset of the one that gets elected today. Whether or not your chosen side succeeds today could become irrelevant just that quickly, without the dire results so many fear if the "right" (mine) side doesn't control Washington, D.C.

Personally, I fear neither candidate as much as one party winning it all and telling us they now have a "mandate" from the people to do as they have proposed. I fear they don't understand how often the main street citizen is simply voting for what they see as the lesser of two evils, most folk's view of politicians being on a level with snake oil salesmen.

So, please, let's apologize to those we have offended, forgive those that offended us, and move on with the purposes we have established and the very reasons all of us are in this forum. Let's share what led us to communicate with each other in the first place and let bygones be bygones. MrOPC, please do as necessary and return to the community you founded. Time will heal the wounds, but it is already time to move on.