I voted a couple of weekends ago, waiting in line outside the Carrboro Town Hall (where the Black Lives Matter flags rightly fly). As luck would have it, I walked up to the back of the line just as my friend Beka and her son, Milo, arrived. It was Milo’s 18th birthday, and he was casting his very first vote.
My first vote was the 1988 general election. I was at college in Ohio, and I completed my Illinois absentee ballot in my dorm room on the third floor of Dolan Hall. When the 1992 general election came around, I was a new transplant in Hawaii, and I walked down to the Makiki Community Center to cast my vote. That night, I was in Waikiki for the Democratic Party’s celebration.
Now I am in North Carolina, a swing state that can determine the outcome of today’s election. I am proud to have voted for Joe Biden and many others who cherish character, decency, service, truth, equality, and hope as abiding American principles.
And I am proud of my children to exercising their rights: Anna voted at Carrboro Town Hall the day before me (her first vote for president), Malia was just elected a class senator at Carrboro High School, and Oliver regularly asks his friends what they know about the candidates.
Today is a good day. Tomorrow will be a good day for good people to stand tall and march forward.
© Anton Zuiker