I was all set to tell you how town officials and the USPS are trying to find a new location to serve the 500 or so postal customers in East Boothbay. I was all set to let you know that the paving project on Route 96 is proceeding according to plan and that contractors installing the water/sewer line installation project on Country Club Road are supposed to pave this week, making it a lot easier for us to get to the dump.

Then, at 5:20 p.m. Thursday, the news intervened. The jury spoke.

Like a lot of Americans, I am still trying to process what I watched on TV as I sat in my living room, with my feet on the couch, sipping a cold G&T as the talking heads tried to spin an event the likes of which we have not seen since 1920 when Eugene V. Debs made his fifth presidential run.

Now, Debs, a socialist, was convicted of sedition for speaking out against American participation in World War l. Still, almost one million citizens voted for him despite his confinement in the federal pen in Atlanta.

Despite the conviction, I doubt the presumptive Republican presidential nominee will spend time in the clink.

After all, the jury convicted him of a minor felony, a white collar crime. He is an old man and has a virgin rap sheet. In over 35 years of sitting in state and federal courts, I have noticed that judges rarely bring the hammer down on this kind of defendant. Some folks on the left say the judge should treat him the same as others using the equal justice argument. I suspect he will.

I know this is a shock to many of my friends on the right and the left, but most elderly, wealthy, white, socially connected white collar crime defendants do not go to jail.

But will the fact he was convicted, that he is now a felon, matter in November? Who knows?

For the last month, the airwaves/newspapers, etc. treated us to a steady diet of trial witnesses explaining the complex scheme he used to hide his tawdry conduct. Why did he do it? He feared the truth would harm his 2020 political campaign.

The witnesses told how he, his lawyer, and his publisher pal – whose name is Pecker – paid $130,000 in hush money to an adult film actress to keep her from spilling the gritty details. Pecker's National Enquirer then sat on her story to keep the public from learning the details about, well, you know the rest.

The former president was not the first occupant of the White House to, er, color outside the lines of his marriage contract. You may look it up if you choose to do so.

In our system, we elect politicians to govern us. They seek secular political office, not a bishopric. As one of my old GOP pals once said: Politics ain’t bean bag.

But successful politicians play a game that involves a certain skill set, lots of money, and good luck. The best pols try to avoid the daily divots and try to, or appear to, do the right thing. Unsuccessful pols get over their skis and run afoul of the press or the law, like a former legislator who once bragged that his golden rule of politics is: Dem that got the gold got the rules. He did 10 years.

I won't stand on a holy soapbox and proclaim the conviction should bar 45 from the White House. Our Constitution does not prohibit felons from running for president.

I am not going to state the earlier civil trial which found he and his businesses committed fraud by overstating his balance sheet was rigged. I am not going to claim the civil trial that proclaimed he committed sexual assault and ordered him to pay millions to the victim was another put-up deal.

But, I wonder, if he has the political skills needed to win another term, given his court failures, the whatever you call it incident on Jan. 6, the goofy fake electors scheme, storing classified documents in the john, and his constant whining about how everybody, including the Republican officials in Georgia and Arizona, rigged the 2020 election in favor of the other side.

And it may not be up to the candidates. The world is on the cusp of a widening war in Europe, the Middle East, and Lord knows where else. We face inflation, a border crisis, and the leftovers from the COVID pandemic.

What political landmines are ahead? No one knows, not the pollsters, the pundits, the pols, the bloggers, those who will post their reactions to this missive, and certainly not an Old Scribbler.

In the end, it will be up to you, Dear Reader.

Are you registered? I hope so.