I thought I got an early start when I rolled out of bed and grabbed a short breakfast.  Election Day is usually a long affair in the news business.  I pulled up to my precinct just after 9 AM.  “Most people will be at work,” I thought.  Not on this rainy Tuesday in Ghent.  The line stretched out the door of Maury High School.  The red and blue umbrellas signified a balance of power among those yet to vote.  

       ”Guess most people didn’t go to work after all,” I told the volunteer passing out umbrellas.  She was a young woman of about 20.  She just beamed, “This is exciting; to be part of the process.”  Her smile was infectious.  She’s right of course.  I had become so accustomed to voting in elections where the volunteers outnumber the voters, that maybe I had taken this privledge for granted.   There was a middle-aged woman with blonde hair, dressed in a red rain jacket and jeans handing out bottled water to people in line.  She was a McCain supporter.  She confided to another woman, an Obama volunteer, about history being made before their eyes.  Civil discourse; polite exchanges on the political battlefield of our Republic.  

      Finally, I made it inside, only to find the line of voters snaking around the hall.  But the line was moving slowly as the minutes melted away.  Finally, I reached The Promised Land; the table where a smiling volunteer checked my voter registration and presented me with my voter’s card to slip into the machine.  I marked my choices in approximately 15 seconds.  As the song goes, “The waiting is the hardest part.”  But those 90 minutes were a small price to pay for this gift of freedom.

Tom Schaad