"Awake": Voting for Change

[H2O Man]

Is everybody in?
Is everybody in?
Is everybody in?
The ceremony is about to begin.

Wake up!

You can't remember where it was
had this dream stopped?

Shake dreams from your hair
My pretty child, my sweet one.
Choose the day and choose the sign of your day
The day's divinity
First thing you see.
A vast radiant beach in a cool jeweled moon
Couples naked race down by it's quiet side
And we laugh like soft, mad children
Smug in the woolly cotton brains of infancy
The music and voices are all around us.
Choose they croon the Ancient Ones
The time has come again
Choose now, they croon
Beneath the moon
Beside an ancient lake
Enter again the sweet forest
Enter the hot dream
Come with us
Everything is broken up and dances.
—James Douglas Morrison

I went to vote this morning, and was pleased that there were only two people in line ahead of me. Moments later, two more people came in and got in line behind me. One of the volunteers said, "Well, this is the biggest crowd that we’ve had yet." There are certain advantages to living in rural upstate New York.

I knew the man who was behind me in line. He is a grumpy, bitter republican who flies two flags on his lawn: one American, and one Confederate. He has always hated non-white people. One of his sons, who is among my closest friends, is proof positive of the theory of evolution.

When we were teenagers, and his father was a part-time village cop, my friend used to encourage me to call his father "Barney Fife." It bugged his old man, so we all would whistle the theme song to the Andy Griffith Show when he would harass us. My friend won a half-dozen amateur boxing titles, and he always was embarrassed when his father attended fights, because he would spout out racist nonsense, no matter who was near him. When we were young adults, and my friend’s mother finally got a divorce, we threw a "liberation party" for her.

We nodded at one another, and I found myself momentarily resenting the thought that his vote would cancel out my own. Then the elderly gentleman ahead of me said, "Well, I guess we’re all here to vote for change." I’ve known him casually for decades, including as a landlord who was always willing to give a break to the consumers I worked with when I was employed at the mental health clinic. When he said that, it was as if my frustration from thinking my vote was being damaged somehow, by the jackass behind me, lifted like an early morning fog.

It occurred to me that he might have been thinking that my vote for change would cancel out his vote for hate. Of course, I have no idea if he was thinking anything at all. But I found myself thinking what a failure he was, as none of his six children have spoken to him in over twenty years. He doesn’t know his own grandchildren.

"Yeah," I thought, "some of us are here to vote for change."

I try not to think negative thoughts. But sometimes, I indulge myself. On the ride home, I was thinking about not only how much I want Barack Obama and Joseph Biden to win today. I also am happy – really happy – that this election represents a national rejection of the Bush-Cheney administration. Bush is an arrogant man. I remembered how he used to mock those who opposed him, because he felt that he was destined to be a popular figure in our nation’s history. But he has ended up a disgraced politician, and he is not even welcomed by the rats in his own party. He will be remembered as being, at very best, the biggest failure in presidential history.

For the rest of the day, I will attempt to focus exclusively on positive thoughts.