Tuesday, Nov. 6

Election Day! No matter who wins, we can all celebrate the end of political ads.

We were up around 7:30, but I skipped my exercises so we could get ready to go to our polling place to vote in this historical presidential election. We could have voted early, but we enjoy the excitement of going to the polling place on the tradtional day. Besides, we enjoy visiting with folks we know, including one of the poll workers, a lady who worked at the same agency as Hubbie and I did before we all retired.

Hubbie hung our flag on the well house, and Mother's flag on her front porch, and then we headed to the polling place. As usual, one of the poll workers remembered Mother's name. He sometimes forgets Hubbie's and my name, but he never forgets Mother's. Even as we were walking in the door, he was already flipping the pages of the voter registration book to her name.

We call Mother our super-voter, because she has been voting for seventy-two years, since she was eighteen years old. The first presidential election she voted in was in 1940, which was won by Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt from New York (Mother's home state), against Republican Wendell Wilkie of Indiana. Mother voted for Roosevelt. She has now voted in nineteen presidential elections.

We arrived at the poll around 9:30. Fewer than ten people, mainly senior citizens, were present, so it wasn't long before we were able to vote.

I was amused when an older lady came in right after we arrived, and seeing the folks in line said, "Oh, I didn't know it would be so crowded. I'll come back later." If she couldn't wait the fifteen minutes it took to get to the voting booth, then she certainly would never have stood in line for hours, like some folks did in our capital city, and other places around the nation.

We were back home by 10 a.m., and around 10:30, I went to the women's wing of the hospital to meet an 11 a.m. appointment to have mammogram screenings. This is not my favorite thing in the world to do, of course, so I'm glad it's over for another year.

Back home, Hubbie fixed grilled cheese sandwiches for our lunch. Mother wasted no time afterward heading to the couch for a nap. While she napped, Hubbie and I ran errands...to the bank; to the newspaper office to drop off this week's word search puzzle contest; to the post office; to a grocery store to pick up block cheese; to a discount store to get birthday cards for some of Hubbie's great-grandchildren; to the gas station; and to the WDCS to begin shopping for Thanksgiving (selected a turkey and a ham), as well as groceries for the week.

It was 3:30 before we got back home. Mother was up by then. At 4 p.m., I put a cookie sheet of sweet potatoes in the oven. Later, I braised pork chops, and cooked corn-on-the-cob to have with sweet potatoes for our supper. Afterward, Hubbie accompanied Mother to her house.

Spent the rest of the evening tracking election results on TV. Tense.