Having just read Texanomaly's beautifully written piece I want now to share my own similar experience. Texanomaly wrote of taking a first-time Dallas voter to the polls. I took a 91-year old friend in Austin.
Her name is Rose. She has macular degeneration in both eyes, is almost totally blind in the left, has an extremely diminished hearing capacity, is diabetic and has a pace maker. Name a malady, she's got it or has had it. Her medication list fills an 8.5 x 11 sheet. She hasn't driven a car in almost 9 years. I am a senior member of a small team of caregivers for this fiesty Phi Beta Kappa, UT graduate. (Class of '38)
Rose has been a staunch Republican all her life. Over the past several years I have helped to bring her around. In November of 2004 when I arrived at her place the morning after the election and told her the results, she wept. She finds George Bush an embarrassment to our state.
I always read to her the local paper on the days that I am with her and often turn on her t.v. when an especially newsworthy issue is being scrutinized. She wants to know what's going on, wants to stay current.
Last year she was eager to hear all about the Obama rally I went to here in Austin standng in the drizzling rain, alongside 20,000 others. She asked for and absorbed every detail of the day.
Before the local radio station that carried Air America and Ed Schultz was sold, she and I listened to the progressive station as I drove her to appointments and around town for various errands. We now are relegated to listening to Rush, but can only take him for a few seconds. She used to love him. Can't stand him now.
This past Tuesday was the first day for early voting in Texas. By way of calls to others on our caregiving team the day before, I made sure Rose had her voter registration card tucked inside her billfold.
On Tuesday I drove us to a neighborhood library where early voting was being conducted. Rose's registration card was expired, but with a photo ID she was cleared to vote. When she got to the voting station she realized she couldn't read the instructions or the names on the ballot. A woman working the site sat next to her and helped her through the entire ballot. I was told I could not.
After we'd voted we walked to my car in the parking lot and got inside. Rose said, 'I've never voted Democratic in my whole life." (apparently forgetting her vote for Kerry in 2004 - but then, she forgets a lot these days). She added, "My mother is probably spinning."
To which I replied, "After the past 7 years I suspect your mother is not spinning but is very proud of you."
I've told her the importance of voting in both the primary and the caucus here in Texas. Because she has no way to get there on March 4th, today she called me to ask if perhaps an Obama staffer might drive her to the caucus site. I can't take her because she and I vote in separate precincts and I have to be at mine when she needs to be at hers.
I called the Obama Headquarters. Told them my situation and was told straight away that, of course, they can send a driver to pick up Rose at the retirement home where she lives on the evening of the 4th to take her to the caucus. I worried that the driver might need to be, as I do, at his or her own precinct. I was told, "We will send someone from out of town." I was impressed by the obvious preparedness.
The woman to whom I spoke at Obama HQ's then repeatedly thanked me for taking the time to arrange this. I was so impressed by the ease of getting my darling Rose a ride, I said, "Don't thank me - I'm thankful to YOU for making this happen."
Maybe I'm naive - at 60 - but this aftenoon's exchange with a total stranger was so nearly effortless, my goal so easy accomplished, that I had to wonder if the suits in DC could bring themselves to conduct the nation's business so well on issues ALMOST as important as the one I was dealing with here in Austin today.
We can only HOPE....