I watched an elderly couple gingerly get out of their car and head to the voting booth on primary day. In this day and age ,no poll taxes,literacy tests or harassment was in play. Their mini journey hand in hand impressed me with their fervor and tenacity to exercise their right to vote as their window of life might perhaps be dimming. I do not know them. Was it duty, loyalty, habit or obligation that drove them on this hot day to take steps toward another civic participation as American citizens.
Habits can drive us crazy or drive us healthy. Memories can drive us crazy or drive us healthy as well. Perhaps the opportunity to vote is for some a remarkable reenactment of their belief that this land is my land. My vote counts. Without my vote, this collective exercise is flawed, faulty, shabby and forlorn. Perhaps they have the belief that my little stitch in the great garment like quilt of democracy can only "fit" if every thread is brought together and woven just so.
On the flip side,I wonder what this little boy in the other picture is thinking and will think down the road of life? What will he be thinking and voting for or against in 10 or 20 years?
What if no one voted? What if there was a mass rebellion of disgust and nullification. In some quarters this is already taking place. The full value of your individual franchise is forfeited and essentially stolen by others if you do not cast down your bucket where you are and vote. Your time and space location matters.
This upcoming political season like all the rest will be filled with non-sense, some-sense, BS and SOS messages. We all can hear the siren. We all can smell the smoke.We all can feel the dilemma. We all can sense the fraying at the seems.We all can see the pre-civil war like tensions. Perhaps this gesture of knowingly placing your thread in the garment on November 2, 2010 will help the little man pictured ease on down the road a piece. We can do no less.
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