I can’t believe how long we’ve had to wait for this election.
[whack, chop] Ahhh… that’s better, and thank you Barbara, who is absolutely right (see comments).
Tomorrow morning my wife and I will walk from our rented adobe to the polling place at the Head Start center down the road. It’s probably about three quarters of a mile away. Half that distance will be on a curvy dirt road that winds past junked cars, collapsed corrals, a hilltop singlewide, more junked cars, an actual corral or two with real cows, two acequias, and a stop sign where nobody does. From the paved road, we get a great view of Ranchos and Taos stretching out below and to the north, west, and east. The weather these days is running about 15 degrees above normal and it ought to calm and sunny. Good. I’ve never voted at this polling place, so it’ll be the first time there for each of us.
The only other time I can remember getting out to vote under my own power was both times when Clinton ran the first time. We were living on the Eastern Shore of Maryland then. The polling place was in a community center in Kennedyville, about five (?) miles away, and I rode my bike. It was an unseasonably warm and humid day, but I would have ridden in the snow: I wanted to make a special ritual of voting for the one I called “my boy,” the first presidential candidate my own age. A boomer just like me (well, I’m a whisker older). One of us, or as close as it would get. And Gore was part of the package! I was so high that autumn, and not from inhaling.
Over the years that followed, I stayed as proud as I could be. He didn’t do a lot of what I thought he should have done, but dammit he was smart, and I felt he had a conscience. When he screwed up, he felt guilty. Whenever he spoke for the country, he did well. Better than well, he made me proud again. I still think he’s a great man and I would like to meet him someday and shake his hand. I’d like to tell him in person about riding my bicycle to go vote for the first president of my generation. That was enormous for me, simply enormous. I think he’d be glad to hear that and would tell me so. It wouldn’t be bullshit, in other words. He’s capable of the human connection.
Bush on the other hand is simply lost. I could say more, but why bother? Even though he isn’t on the ballot, the best thing anyone can do tomorrow who hasn’t done so already is get out and vote against him by voting for any and every Democrat you can find. It needs to be like mass theater, a national ritual performance, a symbolic repudiation of the last six years. It needs to be too big to fake out or steal to have a meaning, and that’s another reason we’re walking to the polling place. Despite everything I’ve ranted and projected about, it all comes down to this. I want to do it in the open, with my neighbors, under the big New Mexico sky. This is it, the present moment of our lives. I want to add my energy to the day.
UPDATE: All quiet and peaceful at precinct 20 in Llano Quemado. Paper ballots and an optical scanning machine. I was voter #50 at 9:30 a.m., no problems whatsoever.
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Don’t bother hoping for the Democrats, John. You tend to get lulled by them at times. Try to remember that they are as incompetent and weak as Cheney is evil.
Be careful. Remember our thoughts create our reality as much as others’. If you want to live off-grid solar go and do it without the need to create a reason why.
Barbara: yes indeed.
Hmmm. Heh.
Have a nice day, then.
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