I blow out the Halloween pumpkin. The insides are darkened with soot and it has weathered the frosty nights of late. The candy jar is empty from the haints and spirits which have floated by my house with the inevitable trick-or-treaters. I greeted all in my own costume as I cheerfully chatted with each child and parent. I shut off the porch light and lock the door.
November 1st arrives at midnight and I can turn on my heat (OK I cheated a couple of times), turn the pages of my family calendar in my library. November is my favorite month of the year…although I am in the minority on that viewpoint. Thanksgiving…the last of the scarlet leaves to fall…ice in the bucket…the remembered scent of mothballs from my long ago winter coats…and this year, the anticipated Presidential election.
When I was a little girl, I so hated election night. I knew all the TV shows would carry the returns and be interrupted every few minutes. I know the grown-ups talked about politics over Sunday dinners at my grandmothers. Sunday dinners that were chickens fresh from my great grandmother’ hen house and jars of chunky applesauce direct from the apple barrel in the cellar. I did not listen, of course, why listen when there is chocolate cake and cousins?
Now I listen. Maybe I should be go past the word listen, maybe it would be better to say I have become addicted to this year’s election as have you, perhaps. The political talk has filtered into my conversations wherever I am…storytelling on the road, phone conversations, my kitchen table. Most of my colleagues and friends share my viewpoint, but not all. My son, Aaron, and I go round and round this issue at the supper table each week. We respectfully defend our candidates as we pass the mashed potatoes. My students at school want to know my viewpoint…I do not tell them. “Listen, listen and think for yourself,” I say. America is for thinking and forming your own opinion where it will be respected.
Respect. Is that who we are or want to be? When I travel overseas to England or Ireland to share my love of stories, I am asked about the politics of the USA. I am amazed and ashamed that folks in other countries know as much as we know, and more in many cases. Our politics not only interest then, but affect them as well. I try to answer intelligently, but know that I fail in my knowledge.
I am so proud to be an American, I know the words are overused and stated often without thought of feeling. Are you not proud? Let me speak to those of us in our small northern Indiana towns? I know that the streets I walk are safe, that the public grounds are groomed and landscaped, that the street cleaners and garbage collectors faithfully do their work along with the winter snow removal folks. They are our government just as much as he or she who holds the seat in the White House. My taxes may go up…or down. Who knows? But the money will go for road repair and our safety and should I say, our pursuit of happiness?
We are Americans. Our lives and stories have been shaped by all who have come before us from soil and lands that are foreign to most of us now. We are not really a melting pot…we are a group of people fumbling to hold hands in the darkness…hands of all color and language. If we let go, then we fail. America fails.
You hold in your hand what makes us great. Each of you. Oh, what a responsibility it us to us…with one cast of your ballot, to make your vote heard from sea to shining sea on Tuesday morning. Just vote.
Love to all,
Lou Ann
