I’m here to report that quite a good number of our neighbors are showing up early to vote, feeling the urgency of 2024 and comfortable with government of, by, and for the people. On Tuesday, two weeks before our traditional election day, the weather was bright and mild and I took a thirty-minute walk from home to South Bend’s County-City Building. I passed through the Farmers Market, where unscheduled conversations and the piles and bunches of bright produce made it seem like we still know the basics of being a friendly, healthy, prosperous country. Walking along the river, I appreciated a favorite local landmark, the stone edging set in place during the Great Depression, when our country acknowledged that poverty unchallenged could destroy the soul and fabric of a nation. And so paid work was found for people to do, lifting stones and setting them in place, hard work I imagine, but the work was twice honorable because the low stone walls made the city’s riverside parkland more beautiful. Near the fish ladder, I ran into a state Department of Natural Resources employee who filled me in on the fish stocking programs underway in our river. Soon I was in the Courthouse district of downtown South Bend, scene of historical events of great passion and urgency, like the Fugitive Slave case a decade before the Civil War. We have shared values and struggles to reflect on going forward.
The closer I came to the big County-City Building, the more hustle there was on the sidewalks. In the outer lobby, newcomers like me reached the end of a line. The first of three lines, which all together took half an hour—not bad! The first line took me to one of the identification tables, where a friendly poll worker checked my photo ID and matched my old person’s signature against the more sure-handed way I signed my registration card back in middle age. This was a brief stop, but she and I managed to have a telegraphic chat about so much being at stake this year. We’re in the hands of a Great Caretaker, she said. I imagine we still all have to play our part, I said. Since she got up early to work the polls, I’m sure she agreed.
Line two took each citizen to a voting machine. Everyone in line was well-behaved. I nodded to a couple I recognized from back in the neighborhood. One man had trouble suppressing a cough, but nobody was able to offer him a lozenge. At the voting booth, the machine was familiar and easy, and soon I pressed the print button. Then one final line, short and fast-moving. Working together, one poll worker from each party helped seal my ballot inside a sturdy brown envelope. We all signed the outside, and I slid the thing through the narrow slot and headed back outdoors. Between the tall buildings, in a bright slant of sunlight, great wide pots of geraniums vibrated with color. That’s what the world looks like right after voting.
No matter our background, we all feel the urgency of 2024. There’s so much poverty and all that comes with it, so much war across the world, which for decades we’ve often provoked or meddled in or provided bombs and bullets for, and then there’s the fragile planet with its teetering ecosystems that our grandchildren must hope to depend on in the future. There’s so much alienation across the land, alienation that left alone will easily grow pathological. I suspect that’s what we see around us now, hence the urgency of 2024. It felt good and right to vote and even to vote early. Surely our work is not done.
Music: "Wrong Foot Forward" by Flook
