God Bless America

Wanted to vote early but with pulling apart those round bales in the cold and making sure all the moms and lambs were taken care of  taking so long it was impossible to get into Brookfield.  After a crazy day at school, with a car disassembled in auto tech and the kids telling me unless I can come up with $62 in cash for the parts guy I won't have be able to drive out of the parking lot, I finally got to the polls.  Thank goodness for purses with a fortune of quarters and crumbled up dollar bills on the bottom.  Very excited to be part of the process.  Even saw my local goatherd pal, Pam Haendle, in line.  But guess what?  They lost my voter registration.  They asked me if I ever voted in Brookfield before.  WHAT???  I've voted in every election since I moved here six years ago.  Called over an official who questioned me.  I told her look, my sheep farm is three miles down the road.  I'm the one with sheep in the road all the time!  I'm famous!  Well, at least my sheep are.  She called the county.  Yes, we have you on the list.  Your card was returned (no PO box on it) so we assumed you moved away.  Funny - Matt's card was not tossed but then he is a registered Republican.  Hmmmm....I think we had a little voter suppression going on here....but they finally took me into a little room and had me fill out a mail-in ballot.  My vote may be "in the mail" but I am very happy to have taken part in this wonderfully empowered democratic process.  I couldn't get my students to registered to vote - I know they were afraid that if they put their name on a government list they may be punished by having their food stamps taken away, or their trailers yanked out from under them, or their SSI checks stopped.  Poverty and disenfranchisement breeds suspicion.   Little do they know they are much better off this morning with a Democratic President who will support the social programs they need.  I fell asleep on the sofa at nine last night after my darling Mia called to tell me that Election Night reminded her of me.  I was swelled with pride knowing that all three of my children voted yesterday.  I don't care for who I wanted them to be responsible members of a democratic society so hard fought and won for with millions of lives.  Instead of the sinking, sick feeling I had when GWB won last time, I am confident and hopeful.  Last time Matt said America would survive a Bush Presidency - well, we almost didn't, did we?  And they blamed it all on BHO.  History students know better.  It takes more than four years to pull a country out of a recession.  FDR couldn't do it in ten years of New Deal programs.  We are on the way up, not down, and the poor, the immigrants, the "47%" will not be forgotten.    We are a powerful people and can't be bought with big money.  Imagine, all those millions from big donors couldn't buy our Presidency.  God Bless America, and good bye Paul Ryan.