When the fish don’t bite, the mind wanders. Too much time to ponder the grim fate of a nightcrawler.

The worm needs only a patch of earth for contentment. In a moment of subterranean terror, the nightcrawler gets pulled from its home and stabbed with a barbed hook, conscripted in the service of bait.

Outside the reach of despots, humans know no equal experience. On second thought, it might compare to last month’s St. Joseph School District votes.

First, citizens were dragged through the dirt. Following that, the pain.

The peculiar malice that arose belies the nature of campaigns for civic improvement. Tax issues get voted down routinely ... it just happens. But participants and citizens seldom feel so soiled in their aftermath.

The issues in April involved continuation of a 63-cent tax levy and requested approval of a bond issue for construction of new schools. Community divisions developed that rival the Union-Confederacy split in the Civil War or just about any city football jamboree.

As the talking points became more convoluted and the finger-pointing more uncontrolled, anyone with a voice could be heard using it, saying, “It will be great when this is election is over.”

So, it’s over. But it’s not.

The gathering storm is not exactly tied to the measures’ defeat, only forced to a more hasty deliverance.

School officials have before them a redrawing of attendance center lines. If new elementary school construction had passed in the April 7 balloting, they would have redrawn these boundaries anyway, but on a more leisurely timetable.

Now, with the budget-salvaging closure of two elementary schools within the next month, and the associated redistribution of those students and others by summer’s end, the pace quickens on the redistricting.

Americans voted for change in November with only the presidency at stake. But this is serious business, school boundaries, and change is a losing proposition.

Those responsible for district lines say, in all earnestness, that infidelity in these markings proves a bad thing for students. True. Education is tough enough without adding the burden of volatility.

But drawing new district lines also takes a toll on the adults doing it and approving them. Their ears will ring with protests.

Check the real estate listings. In every one, a space exists that denotes the elementary, middle and high schools in whose boundaries the property resides. The reason? Because it matters.

A homeowner can always rewire and re-plumb, can sometimes alter the floor plan or add a sun porch. The lot, however, stays put.

While all schools have dedicated teachers and educate their students in presumably the same way, some have a greater cachet when applied to the realty forms. Some home buyers pay more to reside in certain districts.

Since homes remain the significant investment in most families, the altering of district lines fiddles with individual net worth.

People without children in the school district, perhaps people who supported the school ballot issues last month, will recoil at going nowhere and finding themselves suddenly moved.

Let the hollering begin.

That thunder in the distance ... a new front moving through. It’s related to St. Joseph’s schools, and its fury might amaze.

Ken Newton’s column runs

on Tuesday and Sunday.