So, JBK and I are up before dawn, stumbling around trying not to trip over the cat, who can’t figure out why we’re up so early and can she please have some espresso, too?
We head off to the polling place, still dark, that is packed with cars and trucks and people. We hop the jeep up over the curb, park, and dash off to join the line.
It’s a long line.
The doors finally open.
And, a really cool thing happens.
A couple of three youngens behind us yell, “Hey Dr. JBK!” JBK turns around and there are three of his ex-students from that gawd-awful university in that gawd-awful place in rural red that we’d hoped we left miles behind in the dust, well, except for moments like this. 🙂 So they chat, and the lines are crazy snaked, everyone opting for the paper ballot v electronic, and nobody quite knowing where the lines are, since we’re sort of all jammed in the middle of the room. JKB is a gregarious fellow, loud even, and utterly unaware he and his ex-students are now “the” entertainment in the polling station. They talk math, and physics, and doctoral programs, and masters degrees, and teaching. (Robyn, I think there was some number theory talk, I couldn’t understand them.)
An elderly black women chimed in that she forgot her glasses and couldn’t read her Bible. She smiles.
I realize at this point that I’m in the middle of party central, so I started chatting to the Bible-toting women and others who are muttering emphatically about wanting to be in the paper ballot line. There are some words about the ability to hack the machines. There’s a lot of chaos. It was damn fun.
We voted. Did you? 🙂