I want to begin by saying that this column is being filed by phone, which is the only way I have ever filed a column, and that I am calling from a folding chair in a parking lot in Garnet Ridge, Ind., where a meeting has been in session since Oct. 7.
I came to cover the meeting as a visitor. On the first day, a woman named Dorothy Kessler asked if I could “just note down who spoke,” and I did, and by the afternoon I had been given a legal pad. By the second day, I had a title, and by the third, a small lanyard. I am the secretary of a panel that has no members. I have taken the minutes of 41 meetings that have not adjourned.
The work is not hard. A meeting is called to order at 10:04 each morning. The roll is read, and no one answers it, and I record the lack of an answer as “all present, in spirit.” A motion is made by someone who is not there. It is seconded by a cooler. The vote is 0 to 0, and Dorothy declares it “carried unanimously,” and I write that down, and we move on to the next item, which is the same item.
I have learned a great deal about minutes. A minute, in the technical sense, is a record of what was decided, and nothing has been. A good secretary captures that. I have found that the best way to do it is to write down the time of each silence and the weather, and to note when a delivery truck passes. I have 61 pages. The truck, which is a bakery’s, has become a recurring character. I have named it the Treasurer.
My editor called on Tuesday to ask when I would return. I said that I could not say, because the meeting had not adjourned, and I could not leave without a motion to adjourn, which required a quorum. He asked how many people made up a quorum. I said that it depended on the membership, which was zero, and that a majority of zero was, in the rules of order I had been given, “everyone who stays.” I stayed. He said he understood, and he did not.
I was also able, on Wednesday, to reach Dr. Chad Brickhouse by phone. He was, as always, in a different phone. I asked what a meeting of no members could accomplish. He said that it could accomplish “anything it agreed to, because it never disagrees. It’s just common sense.” I asked where he was. He said he was in a meeting, and he put me on hold, and I heard the roll being called. Nobody answered.
I should add that I am happy. The parking lot is a good place to take minutes. There is a lot of sky, and a Walgreens-shaped quiet behind the pharmacy, and the sandwich vendor has begun to give me the secretary’s rate. At night the meeting does not adjourn. It recesses, and the recess is called by Dorothy, who says “We’ll reconvene when the minutes are read,” and so I read them, to the lot, aloud, in the dark.
The vote to approve the minutes is always 0 to 0. I have never been prouder to be outvoted by no one.
If you are reading this, and the meeting is still in session, my number is the number you called.