A reason to change my name?

Did you? If not go. The internet will be here when you get back. This was the first time voting in the new state. We got up a little early and walked to our polling place not really knowing what to expect. There has been a lot of talk about long lines and that we should have early voted, neither of which were ever problems or options that I knew of in the old state. I've been feeling a bit fish out of water like down here in the South over the past few days, so I have to admit for the first time in my life I had a little trepidation about going to the polls.

So we wore comfy shoes and walked to the polls. When we arrived there was one very long line coming out the door. A women in front of us left saying she would come back, I cringed a little bit thinking that she might not come back and not voting is a crime in my book. Then there was some confusion. Turns out there were actually three lines, not one, and they were labeled only by district number nothing else distinguishing, and even that was a bit fuzzy on which line was which. How do you know your district number? It's on your registration card. I promptly pulled my card out of my purse located the number and we were in the right line. Which, was unfortunate because it was a much longer line. Folks around us realized the didn't have their cards, there's a number to call. Cell phones appeared from everywhere as people started dialing the registrar of voters line, which was busy. Then there was a lot of calling home to husbands/wives/mothers/roommates. There was another call of how do I find my number and I pulled out our cards again to show the women in front of us where the district number was. This time I pulled out hubby's card. Whoops. We're in the wrong line. No wait. We are in two different districts? What!? We live in the same house! We're married. Hubby went off to see what was up while I held our place in line, which early reports were saying took 1.5 hours, which was a bit odd because it was 7:25 and the polls opened at 6.

Turns out we're not in different districts in the sense we are used to using the term. We have the same reps and the same polling location and what not. District A is people with last names begining with A-K and District B is people with last names L-Z. Since I never changed my name we straddle that line, and officially belong to different districts, which really just means different lines when you vote. Hubby's line took 25 minutes less than mine, although he kindly waited in the school's lobby so we could walk home together.

Anyways, in the end we voted, as did everyone else there. Which is what really matters. I would have liked to see the process go a little more smoothly, but our voices were heard on the big matters today. Sadly, however, we didn't get the "I voted" stickers like we did back home. I missed the stickers, so I'm giving myself one on the blog. (I stole it from some other random blog so hopefully it's not copyrighted or anything).


On another, related note. Paul's post about campaigning gave me a warm fuzzy feeling as I remembered a moment from my youth. I, as Paul did, once stood on a street corner waving a sign and chanting a slogan of some sort, and cheering when someone beeped at us. My whole family did. All four of us, with hand painted signs and matching T-shirts. It wasn't for a presidential campaign, or even a state election, or an election at all. But a referedum on the school budget. One that wanted to cut art, music and foreign language from the cirriculum (or something equally abhorrent) and one we severely opposed. Or at least my parents did, so as a pre-teen I did too. Looking back as a free thinking adult, I'd stand on the corner again today.*

We have a family picture of us that day up somewhere in our house admist vaction photos, graduation photos, awards and the general trappings of a family life, there we are in those "Teacher's make a difference" T-shirts that only came in grown up size. My sister didn't have braces yet and I didn't have contacts and my mom would probably say "well that was the style" about her haircut. I can only imagine we won because the picture was put in a frame and has stuck around all these years. But either way, I know I was part of something that day. Part of something bigger than me. We all have that opportunity today, to be part of something bigger than ourselves. To be part of something that makes this country great. I didn't campaign for my candidate, I didn't even put up a lawn sign. Maybe I should have, maybe next time I will. Or maybe I won't find the time. It's easy to let things go by in favor of the other busy moments of our life, and there is nothing wrong with that. But at the very least we can all take the time to cast our votes. So go, now. The blog will be here when you get back. I promise.

* it's quite possible that it was the version of the budget that finally supported the arts and we were for it, it was almost 20 years ago so the details are a bit fuzzy...either way the feeling of the memory stands.