Election Day and My Lost Ring
I have a pix (figuring out how to download of new/used phone)
"the Voting chair in BFE"... Hilarious.
Today is Election Day... yea... right... how far I’ve (we’ve) come in four years!
Flashback: Nov. 6, 2008
I was living in Georgia with my mother and my step dad... recovering from my divorce.
My day started out as usual. Coffee and a smoke with mom at the kitchen table. A perfect view of the front yard and our quiet street. One neighbor to the far left and wooded lot straight out and to the left. I loved my view. All trees! I loved my mothers thoughtfulness of coffee! She made it out of love for me every morning. Knowing that a cup of coffee shared in silence before the hurried day began might be the difference of having a terrible day and a really great day. No matter how many people I had to bury that day, or how many crying mothers I had to console, I could always remember my mothers smile early that same day as we drank our coffee. That’s what got me through most days. Simple. So much love.
Sometimes Papa would rise just before I would go to get dressed. This particular morning I noticed that my favorite ring had a split in it. The ring was a full band of daisy’s linked-together. White gold petals with yellow gold centers linked together with an outside ‘lacy’ edge of yellow gold strings. The ‘break’ had stared as a small crack that had now come completely through.
This was an original piece that my grandfather (on my dad’s side) had custom made for my grandmother. There is only one other in existence that I am aware of, and it belongs/belonged to the jewelers wife. There were other sentimental factors over the years that occurred surrounding this ring, but maybe I’ll write about those another time.
Papa J offered to take the ring to the jewelers, “I’ll be heading downtown to vote at the Baptist church, I could run this into the jewelers at the same time.” I jokingly said: “Don’t loose it! I was Nanny G’s ring! and she ain’t around no more... this is all I have left from her.” He reassured me that he understood it’s sentimental value and added “...and it’s got Daisy’s on it too... I got it!”
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Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure:
for if ye do these things, ye shall never fall. 2 Peter 1:10 KJV
I had never been much of a “political person in the past. I had always voted... {although I can’t remember actually voting in 2004. That was the “Fall from Hell”... husband with another woman while we lived in the same house and slept in the same bed... yea, I don’t remember much.}
By 2008 I began to pull my head out of the sand. The result of my devastating divorce four years earlier. I started to peek around at the politics of the upcoming election so that I could be better informed on whom to vote for. I had to at least peek around so that I knew who would be running the country.
After I finished work I headed straight over to the church to do my rightful duty as an American citizen and vote. For what good it would, I could never be sure. The electoral college thing has never made much sense to me... anyways. Our state didn’t seem to matter much in the larger scheme of deciding the presidency. They always want to know about Iowa, Ohio, and Florida. Any “WHY?” Virginia? Don’t those places ever tire of election season? Give someone else a turn to be so ‘important!’ As it seems to be the history of voting: the rural areas vote conservative while the big cities voted left or liberal. So I returned home to ponder my contribution to this great nation.
I was excited to see if Papa J had successfully dropped my ring off for repairs. When I asked him about the ring he searched his pockets to no avail. {He had placed the ring, to his recollection, in his pant pocket. This seemed strange to me at the time because he always wore shirts with pockets... why not there? oh... but it might fall out when he pulled out his smokes.} The only thing he could figure happened to it was that it must have gotten tangled up in his keys and fell out when he went to get into his car in the parking lot at the church. {He felt sooo bad... and apologized to me often over the following year. “I’m really sorry I lost your Nanny G’s ring. Wish there was something I could do.” Today... he can’t recall the incident having occurred at all. I worry.} I quickly jumped back into my car and drove back over to the church and searched in the area where he said he had been parked. Nothing. I went inside the church and asked the election volunteers if anyone might have turned a ring into ‘lost & found’... nothing. I left my name & number & description of the ring for the church office and said a prayer.
I returned home once again but with deeper thoughts than before. “What is this world coming to that someone wouldn’t try to find the rightful owner of a ring they found on the ground?”... It had to have been picked up somewhere. Someone, Somewhere... has that ring... but did not come across it my honest means.... they don’t know its history or significant value to it’s rightful owner. They are enjoying the fruits of someone else's labor for free... like a handout. “Where have all the honest people gone?” my heart sank and I wanted to cry.
But he that lacketh these things is blind, and cannot see afar off,
and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins. 2 Peter 1:9 KJV
All the normal TV shows on national television stations weren’t being shown due to the election coverage, so we opted to surf the other cable channels and watched some brainless criminal investigation show. In between the shows Papa would bounce over to see what the “top of the hour” highlights were regarding the election. This was great because it gave us enough information without all the long-n-drawn-out explanations, conversations, and reporters opinions of why each state voted the way it did. It was the senate and congress votes that worried me the most at the time. I’m not really sure why... it just did... although I haven’t looked at any of it since then, nor could I tell you any names, or whom I voted for... it’s just what I recall thinking at the time.
As it got really late Mom went to bed while Papa and I had stayed up get California’s two cents on the matter. I remember sitting in the double rocking love-seat with the foot rests kicked out... comfy cozy with a few pillows and a blanket, laid back as if almost comatose. Somewhere deep inside I felt that things were ‘not quite right’. I tried to be open minded that ‘all things said’ could somehow “all be true’. But something inside of me wanted to scream “Don’t piss on my back and tell me it raining!” The acceptance speech was full of ‘promise & hope’.
Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises:
that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature,
having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. 2 Peter 1:4 KJV
I sat in wonderment. I didn’t know what to think. “It would have to be an act of God for him to do all these things he’s talking about.” I said to Papa. “Yea It would have to be, but not likely seeing as how he doesn’t even believe in God.” “What?!” I exclaimed. “That can’t be... this country would never elect someone who doesn’t believe in God. This country was founded on God!”
After a slight pause Papa replied, “I’m not so sure that God is a part of this one’s agenda. At least not the God that you and I know.”
“But they said he was ‘Christian’.”
“Yea, and they used to say the moon was made of cheese too.”
This was my first indication that we, as a country, were in for some surprises over the coming years. The changes were swift and broad... more information than I cared to wrap my head around. My brain power was limited and I did not have the luxury to sacrifice any of it on politics then. I stuck my head back in the sand for awhile longer and prayed that God would be watching it for me. The following year brought a multitude of changes... a move back West.... reuniting with old friends... marriage... and the re-entry back to college after 22 years! {Yea... fun and exciting year!}
And besides this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue;
and to virtue knowledge; and to knowledge temperance;
and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness; 2 Peter 1:5-6 KJV
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Today: November 6, 2012
So today's new adventure will be going to vote. Not so strange as a lot of people will be doing the same across the country. {Maybe not New York or New Jersey... they may have some extra time allotted to them so that they can get their votes in. Hurricane Sandy has really taken it’s toll on that area. Not that those two states electoral votes will be the ‘swing’ that finalized the presidency... I could be wrong. Wouldn’t that be interesting... we could be sitting around for days as we lay-in-wait while the fate of our nation is in the hands of hurricane victims in the north east! Nah... I can’t help but think that the presidency has already been decided by the power machine in DC, and that voting has become nothing more than a dog-and-pony show to keep the masses thinking they actually have a say in what has already been decided for them.}
But back here in BFE, my unique voting experience is different that anything I’ve ever seen before in all-my-live-long-years (southern accent). I really thought the days of horse and buggy were gone, but apparently not. WE GET TO GO VOTE AT THE THE NEIGHBORS HOUSE!!! I don’t know about YOU.... but this just seems strangely ODD to me. Maybe I’ve lived in the city too long. Growing up, even with a population of 15K... we always went to the local High School. When I lived in Georgia for a short while, the voting booths were either in local churches and even at the funeral home where I worked (for their district). But in the Neighbors Garage?
And to godliness brotherly kindness;
and to brotherly kindness charity. 2 Peter 1:7 KJV
I went. I voted. I saw people I knew or that I'd met earlier in the year. We visited and chatted... there were no lines. It was stress free... and I felt as if I had been transported fifty years to the past. It was a grand experience. AND I got to watch my eldest son vote for the very first time. "Proud Mom Moment".
This years election wasn’t much different than the election four years ago, but somehow I fear this one was much more important than the last. I sat at the computer {We choose not to have cable or satellite television... we have too many other things to do with our time.} and tried to keep up with the state-by-state reporting. MC went to bed early. I think it weighed on his heart and mind way more that he would like to give credit. “No sense worrying all evening about it... I’ll just wait til morning to find out.” Well..I couldn’t do that. I feel that this election year will be one long remembered by many. I want to remember this years election as I remembered the election in 2004.... where I was... what my thoughts were... and who I was with discussing the ‘fine matters’.
For if these things be in you, and abound, they make (you that ye shall) neither (be) barren
nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 2 Peter 1:8 KJV
This year... I sat alone... with my ‘live stream’ computer downloading at snail speed... glitch-ing here and there... having to reload the entire program from time to time. Missing the tail end of Romney’s speech.... and texting on the phone to one of my BBF in Wa. That was my ‘election memory’ for 2012.
I bet you... if I lost my ring at the voting site in BFE... I am confident that it would have been returned to the election volunteers and someone would have been asking around the area: “Did you loose a ring on election day?” Otherwise, one might see the ring on a neighbors hand... and you know I’d have to investigate. So yea... I’m in the right place... finally... now!
Wherefore I will not be negligent to put you always in remembrance of these things,
though ye know (them), and be established in the present truth. 2 Peter 1:12 KJV
Yet another Adventure in BFE!
