convo with Big John - Part 1

It took me a full half-century. More than many have been alive. Fifty years. But on Friday, Nov 31, 2008, I finally got around to doing what men have been fighting and dying for on foreign battlefields for a century; folks with skin like me who had been lynched for; had their homes burned for, lost their jobs for; died for.

I voted.

Today, I happily remembered that day. On the way out of the building, Big John holla'd "Todd!"

A step and a half later, I recognized what I'd heard, did a one-eighty, and went back in. John (building security) is one cool laid back dude. I hadn't seen him in a while. Gave the Man a fist-pump. It was good to see him. Been a while.

"Happy New Year," Big John said.

"Has it been that long?"

Yep.

So, I raised my left arm showing the bright blue "OBAMA Yes We Can" rubber bracelet that's been proudly on the wrist since I got it about a week before The Vote®.

I said, "Been some changes since we lasted talked last year, my Man!"

I told him about the day last year when I went to vote.

I didn't tell him what happened when Iwent to my precinct... walking-distance from my apartment, dressed to stand in the cold with all the long line of others who I expected to see standing in the cold.

Didn't tell him about how nobody was there but me. How the black grandmotherly type woman who, all alone, was making coffee in a massive kitchen, said "no, baby. If you want to vote today, you have to go to the Voting Board."

Idiot me. I am an effing idiot.

.... to be continued....