A Day at the Races

I wasn't on the schedule at work for Monday, but I had to drop by the store and pick up an MRE to sustain me at the polls on Tuesday. Ran into T., and she asked me to come in later and help out because they were short-handed (as usual); she knows I need hours and will work any I can get. Went back by Travis' apartment and we got high and sat around and discussed the upcoming election for a while, and ate leftovers from Sunday, then I went to work and worked until midnight. Went back by the PH to see if Chris, the Squatter was there. He wasn't, but his cookies still were, so I decided on another night over at the stage at Serrano's, rather than to risk having him wake me up, since I had to be at the polls for 5 AM.

I was watching Tristan and Isolde on my laptop when this kind of grizzled-looking guy about my age or a little older, in a cap and old military coat went around the back of the stage. I heard him rustling around back there for a few minutes, and then he reappeared, with a guitar case. That's when he saw me and he said,”I didn't even notice you there, you were so quiet.”
“I try to be quiet,” I said. Then he waved to me and started off in the direction of Chimes St. Apparently, he stashes his stuff there behind the stage, and plays guitar for money on Chimes St. This really is a colorful neighborhood: I really enjoyed the years I spent living here. It is so Bohemian. There is an active street life and a lot of colorful characters and college students. I love the old wood-frame apartment buildings: there are so few of them left after this last wave of building and demolishing that took away so many old buildings (including mine!) and wiped out the only shopping center in the area. It is now a field, surrounded by a fence, with piles of rubble strewn about. Someone should put a neighborhood grocery there: it would make a fortune.

I went to sleep and woke up a 04:45, when my cell alarm went off. I was at the polls for 05:00, and received the keys to the machines at 05:15. We opened the polls at 06:00, and we already had about 20 people in line. As it turned out, we had lines for most of the day. We also did 29 provisional ballots (one was mine: I was so busy running the election, that I forgot to vote, until we had closed down the machines. I had to file a provisional ballot.), and I was on the phone for most of the day. This election brought in a lot of people who hadn't voted in years, and some of them had been dropped from the polls. It also brought in a lot of young people, mostly students, who had registered to vote right before the election. Many of them had filled out voter registration forms through organizations that were canvassing campus for voters. Some of these organizations may have been late submitting VR forms, I which case they were never registered to vote, but assumed that they were.
Of course, this meant that I spent half the day on the phone to the Department of Elections, trying to find out about voters' status. The Clerk of Court's office gave us a cell phone, a Nextel (try Next-to-useless-tel), but it was locked, and wouldn't dial out. I called the DOE and told them about it, and they brought us another phone, but the network was busy half the time, so I ended up using my own phone, a Sprint phone, and got through, at least to DOE. The Registrar of Voters office was totally inaccessible by phone: I only got through to them once, and I probably called them a hundred times). Somehow, the three commissioners I had working at my table managed to get the Poll List count off by one. I told them that I hadn't had an election discrepancy in over 20 years with the DOE, and I wasn't going to start now, so we went over the books, found where the error was, and corrected it. I hope to God nobody has to look at those Poll Lists!

We slogged through the next 14 hours with long lines. We had about 57% turnout, which is phenomenal for this precinct (and for Louisiana in general). According to our poll, Obama , Landrieux and Cazdayoux all won (but our precinct leans to the left). After we closed the poll, and Peggy and I finished up the paperwork, I packed it all up and took it to the collection point, at Walnut Hills school. I walked in the door to the auditorium, backpack and all, and was stopped by a Deputy Sheriff, who demanded to know what I was doing there. I said, “Bringing in the election results. What else would I be doing here?” I guess he thought I was looking for a soup kitchen ...

Before I left, I texted Travis and asked what they were doing, and they were listening to the coverage on the radio (they don't have a TV). I stopped over at Zippy's, on the way, for a $2.75 margarita, so I could watch some of the coverage on TV. I was about to sit down inside when this twenty-something dude with a mohawk came up and said, “Hey. Why don't you sit outside with us?”.

“You watching the election?” I asked, and he said, “Yeah,” so I went and sat down at a table with him and his friends. We watched the election for a while, until about 10:15, when CNN predicted a win for Obama. This got everybody cheering, and glued to the TV screens. Travis texted me: Obama wins! I texted him back: CNN just said so. I watched for a few minute and Matt, the guy with the Mohawk, said, “Hey, wonder what Fox says?”

I walked over to the one TV with Fox on, just as they named Obama the winner. “Hey! Fox just called it for Obama!” I shouted. “I'd like to see Sean Hannity's face right now!”

I texted Travis: Fox just called it for Obama!” Then I said goodbye to Matt and his friends (they seemed like cool people; maybe I'll run into them again.) I rode over to Travis' apartment, just in time to hear John McCain's concession speech. It was only 10:30. I was stunned. I never thought it was going to be over so quickly. I was half-dreading something like the 2000 election, when Bush cheated himself into the White House, and proceeded to do everything he could to wreck the country. McCain's speech was well delivered (and well-rehearsed: I think he knew in advance the way it was going to go). Obama's speech was uplifting and very moving: the man is an incredible speaker. We really haven't had a President who could inspire people with his oratory since John F. Kennedy (I don't count The Great Communicator, because he was just playing a role). I was absolutely flabbergasted at the way the election turned out. We drank mimosas in celebration, and then I retired to the PH.

Chris' cookies were still there, but no Chris, and the cookies looked like they hadn't been touched in a while, so I said fuggit, and unrolled my sleeping bag and got a good night's sleep, among the laundry machines and the native fauna. I have to admit, I went to sleep feeling a lot better than I have lately. It's about time that the American people repudiated the conservative ascendancy that has plagued the country for generation, and tried a more progressive approach. I'm just sorry that it took so long. There is a long, hard road ahead, but today there is hope.

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