I Voted

It's election day and I voted.

The first time I did so was in 1968 - a very tumultuous year. My friends were being killed in Viet Nam. Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King had been killed here. There was rioting in the streets. Still we went to the polls and we voted. I remember how nervously I walked into the nearby National Guard Armory to cast my ballot, and how grown up I felt when I came out.

I have voted in every election in the forty years since. Sometimes my candidates won and sometimes they didn't. Some of those I voted for turned out to be good presidents, senators and governors, some did not. But what matters most is that I voted. Whatever the outcome of this election, we should all be encouraged. Young people have gone to the polls again. Minorities who have felt disenfranchised in the past have gone to the polls, many for the first time. It appears that when the polls close there will have been a record breaking number of citizens who have voted. Regardless of who the winners will be, this nation, this republic, this democracy will be better for it.

Groundhog Day

Punxsutawney Phil may have seen his shadow, but it seemed like spring today, after way too much winter. The snow has almost melted completely away and it is warm enough to have the door to the back porch open. Even Emma Lee is contemplating what is would be like to go looking for her shadow today.

In spite of the dire situation in our town with the local meat packing plant laying off upwards of 1500 people, everyone was out and about today and most were in a jovial mood. Even old ladies like me caught the scent of spring in the air. In the parking lot at Wal-Mart, I rode to my car on the back of the shopping cart as if it were a scooter, then drove home with the car windows open.

They say, whoever that ubiquitous 'they' is, that there's another storm on the way. Maybe so, but I think I'll spend the rest of this day kicking up my heels!

Winter Wonderland

This picture sums up my feelings about this winter, with no end in sight. I've grown tired of computer games and reading. I've grown tired of the solitude and the cold. And over the horizon there is more of the same.