the american dream
november 7th, 2000

M'lady Malice gave me an electronic wake-up call this morning, reminding 
me of election day. Since I have a mountain of homework stacked up behind 
me that I need to be doing, I'll simply clip from my reply to her.

* * *


Rest assured, I was out pulling my little levers in Tennessee. (We 
actually still have levers in Tennessee - or, you know. At least out here 
in the boondocks of Greene County.) It was my first time voting, and one 
of the few times in my life I've ever been proud to be an American. 
Usually, I'm full of angst towards the capitalistic devoid-of-culture 
television zombie that I often percieve America to be - but today I was 
proud of her, I felt like prancing around with the American flag and 
singing My Country Tis of Thee. I smiled real big at the Statue of Liberty 
minaturely winking at me.

I wasn't on the books at the place I was assigned to vote, so there was 
much mayhem as the electorial ladies (who were grandparents of my 
childhood peers) tracked Important Officials(tm) on their cell phones to 
verify my right as an American to pull my damn lever. But I didn't mind. I 
got to sit down and watch people pour into the polls. Farmers and 
neighbors and people I grew up around without taking any notice of. 
Grandparents with babies. Happy elderly couples. Single white men in 
baseball caps and grease-stained shirts.

Yet the thing the struck me the hardest were the disabled elderly, those 
who have lived so long on this earth that their bodies are beginning to 
betray them. One man could barely see enough to write his own name. 
Another came in carrying an oxygen mask which he was attached to, pausing 
every once in a while to lean against a table to catch his breath. And I 
sat there, thinking. This is the American Dream. These men, right here, 
they believe in this. It isn't just some pretty words, or some flashy 
display of campaign falsettos - these men are here being Americans. They 
are participants, no matter how difficult it is for them. To hell with 
ya'll who whine about how inconvenient it is to get out and vote, who just 
can't find the time to fit it into your schedule, who just don't feel like 
doing it today for whatever reason. If a nearly blind man can stumble into 
the Orebank Community Center, if another pauses and breathes and lugs a 
huge tank of oxygen behind him, you can sure as hell pencil in a few 
moments in your little leather-bound daytimers to exercise your right as 
an American citizen.

And I have a hard time imagining why anyone *wouldn't* want to vote. It is 
one of the most empowering things you could do. I've already decided that 
I'm voting in every small election from now on, just so I can have the 
satisfaction of pulling that little lever and feeling as if I have made a 
difference in some small way.

* * *


So there you have it. I suppose we all have a little patriotic blood in us 
every once in a while.