The power of the vote should make us feel like we’re on the same side

My mother believed deeply in the power of her vote in any election: primary, general, or ”Miss Flathead County of 1940.” She would have been glad to vote for the Pope, if only someone had asked.

The daughter of Italian immigrants, mom had waited eagerly for the day she’d be old enough to cast her first precious vote. I was just six years old when at last the time came. She bundled me up against the Montana cold and led me proudly into the voting booth with her. I was thrilled by the wonderful swishing noise the curtain made as it enclosed the booth for sacred privacy. I sat on the floor, flinging the curtain open and closed. Crrrrsmash! No wimpy cardboard things in those days. The poisonous looks from members of the Election Board were just part of the joyous experience.

On the other hand, my father proudly never voted in his life. His ancestors arrived in this new land before the American Revolution and fought valorously in that war and every war that followed. Apparently, they couldn’t get along with anyone. My dad maintained that just as it is the right of every citizen to vote, it is also that citizen’s right not to vote. He certainly didn’t subscribe to the policy that if you don’t vote, you can’t complain. He complained plenty. Dad’s core belief was that as a loyal and patriotic American, it was his duty to point out how the winning candidate had fulfilled his very worst expectations. “And that’s why I didn’t vote for the SOB,” he’d exclaim righteously.

I’m guessing that day in 1940 my mother voted for a third term for Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Wendell Willkie, the Republican candidate, distributed plenty of merchandise, from neckties to handkerchiefs, for his supporters. A cartoon in The New Yorker magazine was quoted from coast to coast. In rural Montana, though, he was a joke. The extreme south end of a chicken facing north was called the “Willkie Button.” Willkie never stood a chance.

I cast my first vote on Tuesday, Nov. 6, 1956, for Dwight Eisenhower’s re-election. We all liked Ike. My husband voted for the first time, as well. On this momentous first day, we could actually go together, dressed in our best, as if bound for church. In earlier elections, active duty military members were strongly discouraged from voting for their own Commander in Chief.

It isn’t only elections which have changed since then, of course. There are lots of differences. Today, the family gathers to discuss the issues before we vote by mail, and when I get ready to take the ballot to the mailbox, I am careful to be wearing my fall monitor. It flashes red, blue and green, rather like a small plane was landing on my chest, ready to call for help if I should stumble or fall.

There’s no question that all of these changes can make things easier, too. Recently, standing in a long line at a bookstore, I was depressed to realize that not one person in that line was buying my book (“True Tales of Puget Sound”)! I fled to the display table and leaned over it lovingly. The book was still there. Lots of them. As I was standing there, two people actually bought the book. And left. Fast. When I got home, I was horrified to realize that my fall monitor had slipped out of its cradle in my nether garments and was gone. I had lost it.

Immediately called the store, but of course, no one had found it, so I contacted the monitoring service somewhere in the Carolinas. “It’s at Barnes and Noble in Lakewood,” they reported promptly. Sure enough, it had slipped down between the stacks of books as I hovered. It’s reassuring to know that if I’d been lying back there under the table it could have easily found me, too.

So, what’s this got to do with who votes and who doesn’t? I guess I keep hoping for a miracle, when the current air of meanness disappears and we’ll all realize we’re really on the same side.

Sometimes there is a miracle. Remember my rugged father? When the grandchildren came along, he suddenly became “Grandpappy” whose crippling arthritis somehow disappeared when he rolled around on the floor with the little ones and told stories. He made up different voices for each of the three little pigs and assured his youngest grandson that the wolf was not hurt when he fell into the pot of hot water, just startled. Did he reform his voting process? Well, no. He still didn’t vote, and neither did the pigs.

But his children and his grandchildren do.

Where To Find Dorothy in March

• March 4: True Tales of Puget Sound (books will be available). Panorama in Olympia, auditorium, 1:30 p.m.
• March 21: World War II on the Home Front/ True Tales of Puget Sound. Historical Society of Federal Way at Steel Lake Park, 2410 S 312th Street, 1-4 p.m.
• March 25: True Tales of Olympia, Puget Sound and Other Fabulous Places. The Olympia Yacht Club, 11 a.m.-2 p.m.
• March 27: Swimming Upstream ( Dorothy’s podcast), featuring Generation Gap, The Spiritual Gardener, and more. Recording at the Lakewood Senior Center, 9 a.m.-noon.

This story was originally published March 1, 2020 at 4:59 AM with the headline "The power of the vote should make us feel like we’re on the same side."