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In a few weeks, I will turn 80 years old, joining President Joe Biden. It is obvious to me that my balance is not the same as in younger years and occasionally, I forget a word.
During my 44 years of throwing pots on a potter’s wheel and 30 years of writing minutes for multiple organizations every month, I faced challenges and made mistakes. I am confident that I will not make the same mistakes again even at 80 years of age. They say if you practice 10,000 hours, you will become a skilled and reliable expert. With years of practice, my body knows what to do when centering clay, and my brain can take a complex discussion and distill and summarize it into accurate minutes.
Biden has demonstrated that his service of more than 10,000 hours over 50 years as senator, vice president, and president has made him a skilled and reliable expert in foreign and domestic leadership. Elected in 1972, he was the 19th-longest-serving senator in U.S. history as of 2023.
As president, he promised to build the economy from the “bottom up and middle out,” not the top down. In the last year and a half of his term, we have proof that his strategy is working (e.g., the CHIPS and Science Act, the infrastructure law, and the Inflation Reduction Act). In addition, about 130 judges have been confirmed, NATO has been strengthened, we are seeing more than 13 million jobs added with a resurgence of manufacturing, and the country was kept from a catastrophic default.
I celebrate turning 80 years old, and extend my gratitude to President Biden for dedicating his life to leadership in our democracy.
Carole Beal
Blue Hill
