I voted early in small town America. The line seemed long but I got through in about 45 minutes.  I’m going to be in Florida on Election Day, so voting early was a necessity for me, and I was grateful for the opportunity.

‘Lucky’ me, I got in line behind a Chatty Cathy. She looked at my form and asked if she had to fill out the party affiliation. She saw that we were of the same party preference. She never stopped talking. There are signs everywhere that  you aren’t to campaign within so many feet of the polls. I considered her to be campaigning. She drove me crazy.

Not only was she a complete extrovert, she was a bit of a nut. I learned that she was a nurse. She’d worked in hospitals for 20 years and is now doing home healthcare. Yikes stripes! I’m not sure this is a person I’d want taking care of any of my loved ones!

But I digress. As I walked down the sidewalk to get in line, my mind went back almost ten years to when I visited China. Although it’s a much more open country than it used to be, make no mistake that it is still a communist country.  I thought about our freedoms, and how fortunate we are to live in a country where we can vote for the highest leader in our land.  We take so many of our freedoms for granted, but voting in a presidential election is a great reminder of the kind of land in which we live. There is really no country in the world like the United States of America.

I have voted in every presidential election since I was 18. “I” lost that first election and thought the world was going to end. But over the years I’ve learned that our country persists regardless of who is in the Whitehouse.  We survive as a people and as a nation.

When push comes to shove, in times such as 9-11,  our country can unite like no other. Politics aside, we live in the most awesome country in the world and we will survive (and prosper?) during the next four or eight years regardless of who lives at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.    Have you voted yet?  You only have November 8 to do so now.  Exercise your right and freedom to do so. God bless the USA.

dmzh