A stranger — 49 years ago this month — walked up to me outside the Glen Edwards School campus in Lincoln.

He asked if I was Dennis Wyatt.

When I said I was, he then told me point blank I had no business being on the Western Placer Unified School District board.

Funny, but that is exactly what the 16-year incumbent said four months prior when I garnered almost 60 percent of the vote in a four-way race.

I asked why he felt that way.

His response: “Because you don’t have any kids in school.”

It was hardly an astute observation given I was 19 at the time.

My response was along the lines that I arguably had a bigger stake in the education of students  given I had no children — nor did I plan to have children.

My reasoning was I would have no direct input to making sure a child was raised well — whatever that term means — and since the future of civilization is driven by education I had just as much at stake as someone with children.

He didn’t buy that.

So he asked if I owned property.

When I said I didn’t, he fired back I had no right to serve on the board since I didn’t pay taxes.

I corrected him.

I did pay taxes.

My income is taxed, my retail purchases are taxed, and all consumer goods I buy have indirect taxes paid by businesses collapsed into the price.

Given it was before Proposition 13, local property taxes still financed the bulk of local schools but far from all of the cost.

The rest came from the state that was efficiently tapping into my pocket on pay day and whenever I bought something.

I also pointed out at the time in 1979, less than 32 percent of the registered voters in California had school-age children meaning those without kids in school were critical to get state school bonds passed.

And before he could go where I figured he would go, I added that unlike local school bonds tied to property taxes state school bonds were tied to the state general fund supported heavily by income and sales tax.

For added measure I pointed out I walked door-to-door — and mailed to those in the country — a two-page single spaced projection with charts on the school district’s bonding capacity using the numbers that they supplied to voters in a bond election two years prior that failed.

Given we were a Serrano-Priest school district at the time — defined by the state as being a high tax, low wealth district — there was no way figures the district circulated penciled out to allow the district to build what they were promising.

As an aside, the superintendent at one point after I was on the board accused me of killing the bond election.

Given I was a sophomore at the time of the bond election I guess I should have been impressed with myself.

I did run a write-in campaign on the same ballot for an 18 year-old Lincoln High student running for school board. He took my advice to share how business and typing class students addressed mailers in support of the bond election during class time.

It was more than a sketchy process under state election laws.

None of that meant anything to the man who confronted me.

He left me with the parting words that I haven’t forgotten, “you still have no business being on a school board if you don’t have children.”

Fast forward 20 years.

I was introducing one of my grandchildren to a relative I was close to at the time but no longer am.

He practically got whiplash cutting me off.

His words still burn in my ears today

“She’s not your grandchild.”

When I replied she was, he doubled down.

He made it clear since there was no direct DNA connection that the only legitimate grandchildren in the room were his.

Then he actually invoked his religion to try and cement his point.

This not-so-pleasant trip down memory lane was invoked by a national discussion regarding childless voters.

If you do not have children as defined by bloodline, then you have less of a stake in the direction the country is headed.

It has even been suggested that parents with children should have more than a single vote in elections.

At one point in recent years, it was suggested that voters with children should pay less taxes as if they don’t already to a degree via the earned income tax credit and children dependent deductions.

There are enough pressing government issues that leaders — wannabe and otherwise — don’t need to find new and creative ways to divide us further.

Besides, it’s a two-way street.

If one thinks someone without children should be barred from serving on school boards, then why not reduce their tax burden by the percentage the state spends on education?

Why should a single person — or a childless couple — pay the same for monthly sewer charges as a couple with four children?

We could spend all day listing little inequities and perceived wrongs.

But wouldn’t it make more sense for the bottom line of our individual and collective well-being whether it is financial, safety, health or whatever that we work to find common ground?

We live in the civilized world — or on some cases what passes for it these days — because there are things we can do working together that we can’t do separately.

That runs the gamut from the mundane of constructing and maintaining streets to providing defense against common enemies, whether they are criminals and terrorists as well as everything in between.

And to be clear: Ashley, Rein, and Katelyn are my grandchildren.

And Rebel, Wyatt, Ryan, and Kate are my great-grandchildren.

This column is the opinion of editor, Dennis Wyatt, and does not necessarily represent the opinions of The Bulletin or 209 Multimedia. He can be reached at dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com