A House Divided . . . (should still VOTE)

Let each citizen remember at the moment he is offering his vote...that he is executing one of the most solemn trusts in human society for which he is accountable to God and his country.

Samuel Adams

A House Divided . . . (should still VOTE)

“Even in disagreement, my heart agrees to love you always.”

“We may be two strong personalities clashing occasionally, but remember, love, even diamonds are formed under pressure.”

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It is May and here in my County as in many others we are having the May Primary Elections. Don’t worry, I shall not touch the topic of who should be elected. I will just remind you that any civic minded citizen should vote his or her convictions-- for as Margaret Mead said:

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world: Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.’’

And with that I will relate to you a tale of angst and determination. It happened when my husband and I were discussing our voting preferences and found we differed. We didn’t truly fight about it, but had many fervent sessions of espousing our candidate’s stellar qualities and beliefs. It went like that for about a week and finally our day to vote rolled around. And with it came one of the most torrential rainstorms I have seen in my 44 years in this house.

At first we felt we could not go in the middle of a huge storm, but rather we should wait until the rain subsided a bit. Well, folks that never happened. I would bet if I consult the weather forecast for that day, I would find it was a constant downpour, it was huge, what we here in the South call a “frog-strangler.” So we waited until we could wait no longer. Indeed we needed time to stand in line if that were to be a problem. It turned out it was not.

Now most couples who knew they were essentially going to cancel one another out would have just stayed home. It makes a little sense, but we are pretty strong about our belief in voting, and we liked to vote in person, and so we set out.

We were soaked before we got to the car. Still we would not be moved. When we got out on the road, we could barely see, but that was not too bad as other like minded citizens were driving with care.

People, I swear to you it was raining “sideways!”--a phenomenon I have never seen before and certainly not since. But onward we inched. We parked. Our umbrellas turned inside out when the winds hit us. We were so wet we had to wait a bit and drip dry before entering the school (our voting location at that time) so as not to make two very large puddles. Then we entered an essentially empty room, offering a huge array of voting machines, and we wearily cast our water-soaked votes.

Then we headed home, encountering the same kind of weather on the way back. Indeed the rain did not abate until it was almost time for the polls to close.

It is interesting that we never really “fought” about our conflicting views, but also neither would surrender that right to go and cast our vote in person.* There’s something about exercising that right that just makes you feel a little taller. I think of people who through all our 250 years as a nation have literally given their lives to protect this country and its rights. I have not done much that was particularly brave, and perhaps we were just stubborn enough to want to prove ourselves, to the small degree that we could. It felt good. Since our schedules had stuck us with the worst day to vote, we felt we had won a small victory, “won one for the gipper,” and wore our “I VOTED” stickers proudly. And you know, I never even had a sniffle after that foray in the rain. (Maybe the stubborn citizens who persist, who honor their ancestors, are protected from pneumonia due to a heavy rainfall. ; ) 

So the moral is: “VOTE, VOTE in every election, never become disenfranchised. It is a right you must hold fast to—for . . .

“Nobody will ever deprive the American people of the right to vote except the American people themselves and the only way they could do this is by not voting.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt

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*Mail-in ballots were not as prevalent as they are today, most of our neighbors visited their polling site. But the mail-in process has been a great help for those who need it due to disability or special circumstances.