Ya Just Gotta Believe

Shepherd Fairey poster

We just came home from voting and, boy, was it an anticlimax after all the whooping and hollering. Just one man in front of us and about 6 doddering old ladies trying to get him signed in. God help the people who get in a longer line. This year the process was different from the last few times we voted. They handed us a manilla folder with a legal size sheet of paper in it with all the candidates names. Then we went into a 3-sided booth and picked up the pen and filled in (very carefully) the ovals next to the names we were voting for. Then we walked over to what looked like a big shredder and handed our paper and the folder to the man standing there. He ripped a perforated border off the bottom of our sheet and told us to put the larger piece in the shredder, uh, scanner. Then we were done. It only took about 10 minutes even with the old ladies. I was accosted on the way in by a woman with a big McCain/Palin banner around her chest who asked for our support and said she was a military mom. I just shook my head at her and said quietly, "you're wrong." She backed off immediately.

I am afraid for my country today. I think the last time I was this afraid was during the Cuban Missile Crisis. I was in college then and I remember going off by myself on a perfect late October afternoon and sitting on a rock and looking at the sky, trying to imagine if I would be able to actually see the missiles flying overhead when they came or if I would just be obliterated before I knew what happened.

I hope my country can come through today like it came through that crisis, because this is every bit as dangerous a world now as it was then--a lot more dangerous in fact. I am hoping that people of intelligence and good will are banding together today to give our country a chance at a real future, not just more of the same. But right now I don't know what's going to happen, so as Tug McGraw put it, "ya just gotta believe." I'm believing real hard right now.