Given what I do for a living, I always regard Election Day as my Super Bowl. I have to bring my “A” game today. Tomorrow too for that matter. The morning after an election is huge. Huge because some of these races are likely to be too close to call tonight.
What I’m thinking a lot about today is not this election, but one awhile back. 1976.
That year, Jimmy Carter defeated the incumbent Gerald Ford.
Why does that election stick out in my mind? It was the first time I could vote.
Back then, you had to vote on the actual Election Day. There was no early voting. There was no mail in voting. It was the day of the election.
I remember getting out of high school and driving in my white Chevy Nova to my former junior high school to vote. That was our polling place. I met my parents there. We all voted together. It was a big deal.
Now, don’t ask me who I voted for. I really don’t remember. This one thing I do remember… I voted. For the first time in my life, I got to vote.
I remember being very proud of that. I also remember being very nervous too. I had been taught that voting was important.
Great teachers like Ann Norment and Martha Lucy Hankins made certain I knew that voting was a privilege and a sacred honor.
You know, I haven’t missed voting in an election since. I have voted early. I have mailed in my ballot. Nothing though will ever top waiting in line with my parents to vote at Crockett Junior High School in Paris, Texas.
That’s what I’m thinking about today. Voting in Paris, Texas, in 1976. Almost fifty years ago. I’m still proud that I get to do it too all these years later.