Vic Socotra

03 November 2009

Getting Out the Vote

(The Moon at full)

I was fourth in line at the Culpeper Gardens Assisted Living Facility this morning.

That is our local polling station, and I walked with one hand in my pocket and the other clutched around my travel cup of coffee. The time change is harder to manage than it used to be. It is like some great spacecraft lifted us all up out of our beds, and hovering with a sinister whisper, transported us a full time zone to the east, and dropped us into the chill and dark Atlantic.

I was in my sweats, letter jacket and had a ballcap pulled low on my forehead, since I had not even begun the process that renders me a reasonable facsimile of a productive citizen.

I am too old to look like a thug, I think, though there have been times in my life when that would have been the public persona. My fellow citizens were a mixed bag. Fifth Floor Greg, of the Fifth Floor Darlings, was first in line.

“Morning, Eager Beaver,” I said, sipping at the travel cup of coffee and shrugging my shoulders against the morning chill.

There was a sharply dressed African American behind Greg, in a hounds-tooth driving cap and the guy in front of me was a dead ringer for Tiger’s Manager Jim Leyland, except there was no cigarette drooping from his lips below the silver moustache.

“I’m not a beaver,” said Greg defensively. “ I was up anyway. My son was screaming all night.”

“Joys of fatherhood,” I aid and all four of us men laughed. I have no idea why the urge to reproduce seems like such a good idea. Of course, I am glad we do. We need the new voters, or at least the new taxpayers. They are going to have to step up and take care of this mess when we were not the ones standing outside, but rather the ones with the walkers and powered carts who get to wait inside the facility to vote where it is warm.

There were a couple minutes discrepancy between watches and clocks due to the time change. All the clocks have had a quick pass at being updated, since the “Fall Back” part of the biannual social experiment was still new. My shiny Rolex might have been close on time, so we agreed to go with Verizon’s network clock that lives on our Blackberrys.

As the seconds ticked down, we talked baseball, sine that was a neutral enough thing. “What happened to the Yankees?” I asked. “They were down four when I collapsed last night.

The guy behind me appeared to be a Progressive, maybe worse, but still a Phillies fan. Go figure.

“They went up by two more, but the Yankees made it exciting.”

“Good,” I said. I don’t have any skin in this series, but I have to say that the starting pitchers have been superb, and this is pretty good baseball that I would like to see a little more of.

It is all over soon, no more than two games even if the Phillies can climb out of their hole.

The moon was superb above us, heading down toward the horizon. It was an impossibly fat silver orb as it sank down into the tree line. I could see the face of the Man on it, the craters crisp and highlit. I know they say it is an optical illusion that it is so large at rise and setting, but damn, the thing is vast and magnificent.

By the time it is this fat and full again, Thanksgiving will be behind us, and the New Year looming.

Damn, it goes by so fast.

I saw it rise on the road, almost dead down the center median of Rt 29 and the light of the sun failed. I wished I could have stayed down on the farm, but it was a quick rescue mission for the cat, or cats, ins’hallah, and to pick up the neglected mail.

I would have preferred to sleep down there and watch the moon arc across the sky, serene and untroubled.

I couldn’t though. I wanted to get back to Arlington and rise from my own bed early this morning. It is the first opportunity we have been given to talk to the Government officially in quite a while, except for the yelling at the television or the radio.

I was eager to find something to go vote against, and by God, it felt good to do it.

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