Matchbooks and Emery Boards - Election Day 2020

My dad loved Christmas, but I think May and November Election Days were his favorite holidays of the year.  He was our Jackson 6 precinct committeeman for around 20 years, and of all the things I was proud of him for, that was at the top of my list, as he constantly reminded us of our responsibility as Americans to vote -- it was a gift of democracy.  

Helping others exercise that right was his gift. 

He prepped for election days early, making sure that every adult in Jackson 6 was registered to vote.  I remember riding along with him on those days, and he’d point out each house, telling me if the occupants were Democrats or Republicans.    “Now these people, here,” he’d say, pointing to a neat white house on Meadowbrook Drive, “cancel each other out – she’s a Republican and he’s a Democrat.” 

In those days - the late 60’s, early 70’s - he was a firm believer in the straight ticket.  He was always the first to vote each election morning - it took him less than 30 seconds.  Clarence Wichman, the poll sheriff, would check to make sure the machine was in proper order, then waved dad in with a flourish.  Dad stepped into the machine, pulled the curtain closed, popped a straight ticket lever and opened the curtain.  In later years, I remember he agonized a bit over crossing party lines to vote for a friend running for county commissioner.  “He’s a good man, even if he’s a Democrat,” dad said.  

Most of Jackson 6 was rural.  It stretched from our farm on the near east side of Seymour, east on US 50 to the fancy new Mutton Creek subdivision, then down US 31 South to where 31 crossed I-65, just past our "bottom ground" that's now a part of the refuge.  Dad knew everyone in Jackson 6, knew their politics, and greeted everyone who came to the polls at the Union Hall on South 31 by name.  He made them happy to be there, happy to be doing their duty.  It was his gift, I tell you. 

Election days started early.  Well before 5:00 AM, dad would drive to the Cake Box Bakery in town and pick up donuts for his poll workers.  Each party precinct committeeman had to supply an inspector, a clerk, a judge and a sheriff.  These were always the same people – local women (and Mr. Wichman) who took their responsibility very seriously.  I don’t remember who did what (except Mr. Wichman), but I can still see those women bending over the Jackson 6 precinct rolls, finding names and checking addresses, watching carefully as signatures were written onto cards.  There would be no such thing as voter fraud in Jackson 6.

Dad would be in and out of the Union Hall all day, greeting voters, picking up lunch for the poll workers, driving elderly voters to the hall to vote.  When the polls closed at 6, he made sure supper was there for the workers.  He watched as they completed their jobs – signing off on the poll books,  mysteriously taking the vote count from the machine and closing up the machines until the next election, the judge (I think) taking the count down to the courthouse in Brownstown. 

Dad would head to Brownstown as well, when all the ladies were safely on their way home and the Union Hall was put back in order.  I went with him once, and immediately understood the thrill of watching vote counts posted in the lobby of the courthouse, candidates, party officials and excited onlookers of both parties all around us.  

When I was 12, I stood outside the polls as dad asked me, and handed out matchbooks and emery boards for Republican candidates.

When I was 16, dad put me to work driving people to the polls.

When I was 18, he was there with me when I voted for the first time.

When I was in college, I came home and worked as a real poll worker for him.  I think I was the clerk. I got a paycheck. 

When we moved back to Indiana after living in Akron for 7 years, dad wasn’t the precinct committeeman any longer.  But since we lived in a house dad gave us on the farm, we lived in Jackson 6, and still voted at the Union Hall.  I shocked the ladies – some who I knew, a few who were unfamiliar - at the desk when I asked for a “D” in the first May primary I voted in.  “That’s Georgie,” they whispered, “Richard’s daughter.  She's voting D.”  They continued to whisper, and I smiled as I pulled the lever for the curtain and made my choices, choices I had decided upon long before entering the voting booth, having studied both the candidates and the issues, just as dad taught me.  And when I left, I told the ladies, “It’s OK, he knows I'm a Democrat.”

Over the years since, I’ve voted as a 
Democrat in most primaries, but took an R once to vote for my brother, an R once to vote for a friend.  Consequently, I get political mailings/recycle bin fodder from both parties. 

Over the years since, I wish I still had my dad to talk to  about candidates, policy and elections.

This year, I miss him more than ever.

This year, I voted early.  I live on the same road, on the same patch of land, but am now in Jackson 7, and vote way across on the west side of town.  No curtains to pull - we vote digitally, or electronically, or whatever you call the method we now use.  I thanked the poll workers there that Friday in October – I know what a long day it is, and they have so many of them now that Indiana residents can vote several weeks before Election day. 

I have no idea of who my precinct committeeperson is.  (I blame myself for this - it would be easy enough to google.)

No one was there to shake our hands and thank us for voting.  

No one comes to our door to check on our registration or to tell us the key reasons we should vote Democrat or Republican. 

Maybe it’s Harry’s happy greetings that have kept candidates and precinct committeepeople  away.  (He is a little intimidating, in his big goofy way.)

Maybe it’s Covid.

Maybe it’s just that no one cares like my dad did. 

Thanks, dad.

NaNoWriMo Day 2

I am going to work on my novel(s) today, I promise.  But somehow I ended up with a poem early this morning.  My dear writer friend, Martha, got me thinking about what we remember on a cellular level, and this happened.  (And just to be clear, this is an analogy, and not about my dad.  Take from it what you would.)

Daddy

 

They were different

She knew it in her cells

She was a blanket

He was a freight train

Into a room

Into a handshake

Into a woman

Confidence, he told her

While she watched him from her corner.

She knew he was different

She longed for him to know her

She was a garden

He was a battle flag

She followed him into the desert

Where he left her

She followed him into the cold

Where he left her

To find her way back

Persistence, he said

While she watched him from the doorway.

She knew he was different

She tried to understand him

She was a chess board

He was a drone

Busy

Very busy

Very busy making

Money

Sex

In the daylight

Charisma, he said

While she watched him from her bed.

She knew he was different

She was Galileo

He was a box

Others filled it

Longing to be a money sex box too

Leadership, he said

While she watched him from her grave.

He was different from her

Though ill

He lived

Though vital

She perished.

Peace.

NaNoWriMo Day 1

 Today I wrote 2000 words of a new novel.

Something completely different.

I don't really know where the idea came from, or where it will go, but it's on its way. 

Yesterday, I probably wrote 2000 words in response to my Indiana State District 69 Representative's writing prompt (read: Facebook post), "Tuesday.... MAGA or magazines?"

I know exactly where that idea came from, and where it lead me -- right down the rabbit hole of arguing with people who:

1)  probably didn't pay attention in either English or History classes in high school; 

2)  throw originalist Constitutional ideas around but who probably haven't read or understand the Constitution (I've read it, but don't understand a lot/most of it); 

3)  didn't read my posts for the thoughtful, insightful, kind and fact-based tidbits of information they truly are; 

4)  really, really like guns and are very offended when you refer to a semi-automatic weapon as an automatic weapon (sheesh, sorry!);

5)  don't understand the concepts of sarcasm and hyperbole;

6)  are super good at calling people uneducated, brain-dead, half-brain, brainless, idiot, stupid idiot, moron, lunatic, flaming liberal, snowflake (I didn't mind that one - snowflakes are soft, lovely, quiet and avalanche-building), and my very least favorite of all time, libtard, which I don't even like to type out.  

When I pointed this out to Pepper, one of my sparring partners in the thread (how the term is offensive to those with intellectual disabilities and the people who love them), Pepper's rebuttal was that I was a stupid liberal libtard. 

Let me add "redundancy" to point #5.

I would like it noted that I didn't call any one a name.  

Not once.  

Because I think bullying is the very worst form of debate.  

But because this is my blog and no one reads it anyway, I'll quote my dear and sassy sister and just say it. 

 

Fuck the kooks. 

Peace. 

NaNoWriMo 2020

*

 "I don't think everyone wants to create the great American novel, but we all have a dream of telling our stories-of realizing what we think, feel, and see before we die. Writing is a path to meet ourselves and become intimate.” ~ Natalie Goldberg, Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within

 

Writing the Great American Novel

Writing an American Novel

Writing a great novel

Writing a novel

Writing

 

I have pinky-swore my friend, Margaret, who lives in Pennsylvania (and who I am sure is my baby sister from another mother) that I will do NaNoWriMo with her this year.  NaNoWriMo is short for National Novel Writing Month, held every November since 2006.  The idea is to write every day, November 1 through November 30, aiming for a 50,000-word completed project.  That's between 1500 and 2000 words a day.  Every day.  So, roughly 10 times what I have written above, which with a nice long quote at the top, is now at 191 words. 

Margaret, at age 27, has completed writing her first novel (or at least the first one I know about), has completed the second of the trilogy (I’m fairly certain) and has outlines for the third. (She also works at a small independent bookstore - my dream job.)

At 60, I have not yet written a novel.  I’ve written lots of serious blog posts and lots of nonsensical poems and song lyrics meant primarily for the women in my writing circle and others with my similar weird sense of humor (and love of Dr. Fauci).

I had planned to complete a novel this year.  It was part of my grand plan for 60, to honor my mom, who died -  far too young -  at 60. 

Not much of my grand plan was completed, however, and I blame Covid.  Granted, I (like the world) was homebound for many many months, and had lots of time to complete my works in progress, but I was busy.  Busy worrying.  

I just couldn’t concentrate on writing.  

Or reading.  

I did a lot of knitting there for awhile, but that lost its sparkle, as well, when the darling Norwegian knitters I was following and knitting along with contracted Covid and became very ill – how could I go on?  (They are much better now, by the way, and have been YouTubing their driving vacation in Northern Norway, which has now become the #2 destination on my post-Covid travel bucket list, right after Austin, Texas and a visit with Grandma Shirley, whose birthday happens to be today.)  

I sewed, which seemed to be the one thing I could concentrate on and not let my mind wander to the ultimate destruction of humanity by Covid or packing the Supreme Court or government deregulations leading to increased fracking and eased environmental protections leading to enhanced climate change leading to the incineration of the planet.  

After you put a sewing machine needle right through your fingernail, you learn to concentrate on your sewing.  

But I didn't write my novel.  Oh, I have started two.  One took shape last year, inspired by my writing circle.  It is fun, but I don't have any idea where it is headed.  

The other - my "first novel", the  novel I left my last paying job for and which I’ve been working on for several years now -- is a highly fictionalized account of what happened to my family (and over 200 other families) when the land we lived on became the Muscatatuck National Wildlife Refuge. 

 

I want readers to know the story of how the idyllic farm (at least in my 8-year-old’s memory) was condemned by the federal government.  Of how my parents and grandparents took the United States of America to court, initially hoping to stop the seizure of the land, and that failing, arguing that they be paid a fair amount per acre, in order to be able to buy an equal amount of land outside of the refuge boundaries and continue farming (that part, they won).  

Of how eminent domain, a set of laws established for “the good of the people” brought with it broken hearts and broken spirits.  And yet, I want to capture all the sweetness of the life we had.  The beauty of the farm.  The hard, hard work.  Milking and butchering and harvest and planting.  All the cool and disgusting and fun and stinky things we did just because of where we lived -- on a farm.

I want people to know about my amazing grandma’s love of her neighbors and her unspoken yet loud competition with her sister.  I want to write about my smart, smart dad and my sweet, loving mom.  

Because I want to write something people would want to read, would carry with them in their hearts and their heads for awhile.  And if those people are just my people – not the general reading public who buy my published book  in their favorite small independent bookstore – that’s ok.  I once thought maybe my writing would make me famous – now, I just want my writing to make me happy. 

Will I complete NaNoWriMo?  Probably not.  Or maybe.  Consistency and stick-to-it-tiveness are not my strong suits.  I have 2 pretty good chapters - 23,000 words - of novel #2 (which I've tentatively titled Writing Class - how clever, right?) written.  Four years of writing later, I have 69,000 words in a mishmash of “chapters” of novel #1, Bright Fields (a variation of my grandma's maiden name). 

Something could happen, I guess.  I could surprise myself and write every day. 

So I am going to try really hard this November.  Just for myself.  And my kids, so maybe someday they can say, here’s what our mom accomplished.

And for Margaret, of course.

Peace 

*image courtesy of NaNoWriMo

Another Quarantine Poem - To My Crush

I call these my Dr. Fauci masks - button-down on one side, a little fun on the other

I adore you, Dr. Fauci;

Come sit with me on my couchy
And speak sweet words of immunology.
Whisper how you whipped Swine Flu,
SARS, MERS and Ebola, too;

Now, solve Covid while I serve you snacks and tea

Because I believe you, Dr. Fauci
Though you have made some people grouchy
Just as you did researching HIV.
“Too slow!” They cried, “There’s people dying”
But you wisely kept on trying,
Reducing AIDS and changing history.

And still they fuss in this pandemic,

(It's folks who aren’t so academic - 

Do you think they passed high school biology?)

They see the issue black and whitely

(Googling “viruses” and reading slightly)

And put no faith in your advanced degree.

“A hoax!” “No masks!” I hear them cry,

Each one quite willing to deny

The Covid facts you so succinctly present;

“CO2 breath” and rights, Constitutional,

Their arguments counterrevolutional

To an illness you KNOW they could prevent.

Dr. Fauci, how I miss you,
I would never contradict you
If I were the seated President.
Like Reagan right through to Obama,
I’d be your ever-listening mama
And flatten curves to your heart's content.

I’d never make you touch your face
Or bow your head in sheer disgrace
By saying things both stupid and untrue;
I know you are the voice of reason;
Truth-telling is no cause for treason

(Hey!  That just might be my new tattoo!)

And when they ink it on my arm,

I'll think on your smart sexy charm

And give thanks that you always will hold sway

With science, facts, your impish shrug;

I dream someday we share a hug

That's closer than the cursed six feet away.  

Peace

A Quarantined Continuation of an Ongoing Problem

Our state representative is in a lot of hot water again.  I used to argue with him, and wrote a lot about him on my old blog - here - but I felt trampled and disheartened and afraid for our state and country after engaging with him and his minions.  

So I stopped.  I didn't look at his Facebook page for two years, I stopped following his ineffectual legislative proposals, I stopped worrying about having to run against him (because I would be a terrible, weepy opponent) and thank goodness, other good people have taken up that gauntlet only to have been surprisingly and  soundly beaten and, I'm sure, spiritually devastated.  

But last week, he posted a meme he had made on his FB page, and after all the Indianapolis stations and paper ran stories about this latest debacle, I had to go look.  

I don't like him, I don't want him to be my representative, I pretty much hate everything he stands for, and I really really hated the blatantly racist meme he posted.  But that part of me that's been working so hard on inner peace and kindness thought he needed something good for his page, so I sent him a link to an ABC Nightline segment about some good things going on to Cummins (where Clay works) - you know, something to be proud of in District 69.  His people working hard to make the world a better place.  Something you would expect a State Representative to post on his Facebook page. 

He shared it without fanfare or comment.  But I was happy.  

But then, I'm a schmucky Pollyanna. 

Not 10 minutes later, he posted a long rant about why he isn't a racist.  He gave his readers a dictionary definition of "racism" (as a former English composition teacher, I always wanted to inscribe a huge "F" in smelly red Magic Marker on any paper that started, "Webster's Dictionary defines ______ as ______."  Egads.).  He railed against those who see racism in what he posted - we are the true racists.  We are the uneducated.  We are the unreasonable.  We don't have a sense of humor.  

Against my better judgement, I posted a comment.  As you can imagine, I commiserated over my comment for a good hour, making sure it wasn't too snarky.  

It's a little snarky.  

A real and important part of the fight against racism, hatred, intolerance and injustice is to take a moment before speaking (or posting) to consider how your words and actions will affect others who are in very different socio-economic, racial, ethnic, religious, or political situations from yourself. To “put yourself in another’s shoes.” To speak kindly with others and genuinely consider differences. This is leadership, leadership for both those who agree with your political leanings as well as those who firmly disagree with you. As you well know, what seems funny to you can be horribly offensive or simply obnoxious to others. Even if you swear you didn’t mean it that way. Even if all the other kids are saying it. Be better than that. Be a leader who values human spirit more than the fast giggle. Be a leader who values human dignity more than the “clever” meme. Maybe give up meme-making all together in an attempt to repair the integrity of the position to which you have been elected. 

And I signed it "from your favorite SJW Liberal Peacenik Snowflake."

Just because.    

He didn't reply.  

There were over 700 comments on his post, split fairly evenly between "Good job, dude, don't let the libtards get you down"  and "we need to get these POC out of our country" to "you are a raving egomaniacal racist lunatic"  and "you piece of shit." 

As superior and sassy as I felt when I posted my comment, I felt like ick inside after reading the comments from his supporters.  These are the people who open carry.  These are the people who refuse to wear a mask, citing it as an infringement of their freedom.  These are the people who break the arms of employees who are simply trying to enforce store policies about masks and social distancing. These are the people who shoot black men out for a run.  

And even if I quarantine myself from his Facebook page again (which I have already done), these Tea Party Republicans, these KKK members, these NRA nuts, the Make America Great Again folks are out there, spewing the  evil on Statehouse steps, carrying grammatically illiterate signs and waving Confederate flags while their guns swing from their shoulders

And it scares me.  
I wish I knew the solution, the key to some sort of peace between them and us.  Us and them.  Some glue that will make us all OK with each other again.  

If you find it, let me know, ok? 

A Quarantine Mother's Day

I tried hard to write something clever about Mother's Day in quarantine, but everything I wrote looked like a big bowl of sap covered with a generous helping of cheese.  

So let me just say this: 

I love my kids fiercely.  And their kids fiercely.  They are all amazing people I really like being around. 

I miss my mother something awful every day. Most everything I have done during this quarantine to keep myself sane can be traced back to her.  Sewing, knitting, cooking, baking, watching  BBC mystery shows.  Not gardening, but she tried hard to make me a gardener. 

And I'm so thankful for my grandmothers, who have left me with nothing but happy memories, and therefore something to write about. 

Peace.