I Got the Sticker and Everything!

This morning, after dropping my youngest son off at school, I went to the local Masonic Lodge to vote. It was busy. There was a line of cars going in and out. Driver’s faces were silent memes of frustration. Inside the lodge, people waited in lines for the booths, looking over shoulders and nudging those who were too slow to take an open spot.

I looked around at all the others. I am confident in saying that, at that time, I was the only one there with a smile on my face. No matter how corrosive the substance or how shrill the timbre of politics, I am always proud and grateful to be able to go to the polling place and cast my vote.

When I turned 18 it so happened that the coming election was just a month away. At that time, George Bush Sr. was running for a second term against Bill Clinton. My best friend (who had also recently turned 18) and I spent hours discussing the issues. We were on opposite sides of the fence, but felt no animosity toward each other. We were just thrilled to be able to have a say.

Four years later, a roommate and I had our sample ballots out on the coffee table, kitchen table, desk chairs. They traveled with us. One would call out a thought or comment from different parts of the apartment and the other would grab his ballot and scan the written arguments on either side or the notes he’d scribbled in the margins. I was still excited (unreasonably excited) to be able to vote.

Now, as a married father of two boys, I maintain a stubborn silence about politics, which has only been broken recently because my older son (who is 17) was interested in the election. I have grown tired over the last twenty years or so of the increasing strain political discussions place on my individuality. If I think this, then I must be like that. And if I think that, I can’t possibly be like this. I’ve grown tired of being boxed in. I’ve grown tired of being thought of as an enemy to someone who disagrees with me. I’ve grown tired of being called to constant indignation or, in recent years, out and out wrath over the way other people think.

But I have never grown tired of voting. I’ve voted for presidents who have won and those who have lost. I’ve voted for measures that have been made law and those that haven’t. But I’ve never lost the excitement I first felt over twenty years ago, or the feeling that my vote matters.

And I refuse to mail it in. I always go to the polling place grinning like the village idiot. Over the past decade and a half we’ve made it a family event because it was usually the case that we were only free in the evenings. My wife and I would take the boys with us, sign in, wait in line, cast our votes, and go home.

It was only this year that I actually went alone because that was the way it worked out. But that’s not the way I want it to continue. My older son will be able to vote in a year and, based on recent discussions, he will likely disagree with me on a number of things in the next election. I hope when that election comes around we can go and cast our disagreements together.