In the wake of one of the most divisive elections in history, a lot of us have a wicked post-election hangover caused by the polarization bender we’ve been on for the past year.

Recently I attended an event where I encountered a truly revolutionary idea for revitalizing a struggling economy. But it wasn’t at a political rally and the idea isn’t even new. It was tried about 80 years ago, and it worked — that is, it helped end the Great Depression by having the federal government pay artists to create art.

If you live in Vermont, it might feel like New Hampshire senatorial candidates Kelly Ayotte and Maggie Hassan have spent more time in your family room lately than your own family, given the relentless TV ads they’ve run. More than $30 million will have been spent to employ one, single person.

It was 1972, the summer after my college graduation. I was a teaching fellow at Phillips Andover Academy, an ivy-covered liberal stronghold in deep blue Massachusetts. I was gregarious, but I didn’t know anyone – literally not one person - who wanted Richard Nixon to be president. George McGovern was the obvious choice, especially for young people like me who had taken to the streets to protest the Vietnam war.

Felix Frankfurter was a close advisor and friend to President Franklin Roosevelt, who, in 1939, appointed him to the Supreme Court, where he served for 23 years. A brilliant jurist, Frankfurter was a founder of the American Civil Liberties Union and a strong advocate of judicial restraint.

Susan Sontag writes in her essay, Plato’s Cave, that photographs “furnish evidence.” And maybe this helps explain why people are so suspicious of taking selfies in the voting booth.

I came in with FDR in 1931, probably much to the chagrin of some of the family. Everybody was a Republican other than one or two Democrats. But Barre was a union town, and labor supported Roosevelt pretty much down the line.

If there’s one refrain I’ve heard over and over again for the last month it’s “I can’t wait for this election to be over.” Well we’ve finally arrived at closing time.

For the second time in as many years, Newfane voters are being asked to reconsider a bond vote that failed - about whether or not to build a new town office.

Many towns – including mine - use schools as polling places because they’re handicapped-accessible and have ample parking. But this year, over-heated campaign rhetoric, with repeated assertions that the election is rigged, and fears that so-called “Second Amendment people” may take action if they don’t like the outcome, has put some schools on heightened alert.