With Apologies to Roger Angell

The holidays are here and the year’s almost over;
We start to look back on a year filled with clover.

Happy Holidays to members of the Parents Coalition,
Here’s hoping for a better year-- we’ll be wishin’.

A Merry Christmas to Nancy Floreen, who bested the MoCo political machine,
Best wishes to her on her new presidency,
We’re sure she’ll keep faith with her constituency.

To Valerie Ervin and to Phil Andrews, we hope that your stockings are filled only with glad news. No coals only good things, to repair infrastructure; we need those new watermains before they all rupture.

In the upcoming year we’ll need all hands on deck to fix mold, leaky ceilings and bathrooms awreck. Our children need clean air with much less particulate and shiny new textbooks to make them articulate.

Here’s hoping we have transparency and less malice
For that we can look to Al Carr up in Annapolis.

For Duchy Trachtenberg, on a whim we’ll
hope the dreidel comes up -- gimel.

At this winter solstice its hard to believe its been one whole year since we met; to those new and old on the PCMC net.

And to our exceptional eagle eyes on development,
Donna Baron and Jim Humphrey, should be in their element
with master plans coming up by the score,
We hope the New Year brings less and not more.

And all good wishes to our hard-working Council,
Here’s hoping November elections don’t trounce you.

To Shirley Brandman, Board president past,
From all your friends who are pains in the ass.

To Kumar and Janis and kudos to Lyda,
Who all work so hard to make things all right-a.

For Louis who writes FOIAs with his mighty pen,
we hope you’ll keep at it in two thousand ten.

Merry Christmas Tim Hwang,
The youngest board member, we hope—
you get the vote!

A sweet and delicious bûche de noël for all of the citizens who make living here so swell.

To Diana Conway and all those who twitter, let’s make this a New Year that is all aglitter.

And fond Christmas wishes to kids at Monocacy,
You kept your school open by behaving so raucously,

A very good Christmas and Chanukah too to those hard-working ecokids – the Piney Branch crew.

And let’s not forget the county exec, Isiah Leggett who makes everything tick.

For Judy Docca and of course to Phil Kauffman let’s hope next year’s ‘retreats’ come none to often.

To Miranda Spivack and to Jen Beasley, keep writing your stories…
we wish you success and more news on the mores …
Of Dr. J. Weast and Rollin Stanley -- so please keep your pens and your notebooks quite handy.

And to Brad Pearson who uncovers the truth, thanks for your work, you are quite the sleuth.

We can’t forget friends Kate Ryan and Ms. Fabel, we wish for more stories when you are able.

And to newcomer Nelson hello to the fray,
We read your stories day after day.

To all those who participate in our democracy,
Here’s wishing a better 2010 than its s’posed to be.

We come to the last of our end-of-year doggerel,
With hopeful eyes forward to the New Year’s inaugural.

Goodbye to the old year and in with the new,
The Parents Coalition wishes you all fair adieu.

Happy Holidays and a Good New Year in 2010 from the Parents Coalition of Montgomery County.