I voted yesterday, of course, and I wanted to share a sort of "slice of life" (or, perhaps more accurately, a "sliver of life!") that really encapsulated for me one of the reasons why I love our country so much.
The most emotional issue on which to vote this year--for Californians at least--was Proposition 8. People on both sides have been very vocal in their wish to either see the proposition pass or to not pass. On Monday and Tuesday of this week, a lot of people congregated on all sides of a major intersection that I drive through every day on my way home from work, waving signs either for or against. On Monday I heard on the radio that apparently the crowd was actually obstructing traffic so I decided to go home a different way. Yesterday, however, I decided to go down there and see what there was to see.
As I pulled up to the stop light, waiting to turn right, I was the second car back from the intersection so I was quite close to the group of people on that particular corner. Most of the people in the crowd appeared to be college age, but there were also some who looked a bit older. I saw a pleasant looking young man wearing a bulky turtleneck sweater and holding up a homemade "__ on 8" sign. (Since my point is about my observations and not about how I actually voted I have chosen to leave out whether his sign said 'Yes' or 'No.') Our eyes met for a moment so I smiled and flashed him a "thumbs up" because I planned to vote in the same way that his sign advocated.
I then turned my eyes to take a look around at the other people there on the corners and I watched another young man crossing the street, waving his own sign. I noticed that the guy in the sweater was mostly surrounded by people holding signs from the opposing view, and yet for the most part they were all smiling and there was no sign of any fighting or disturbance. I thought, "How great is it that Americans can express their opinions without fear of arrest or persecution and even though they may sharply disagree they can assemble together peacefully on the same street corner without getting into a fight? And how great is it that every person has the right to cast their vote and have equal input as to the outcome of any item on the ballot?" I tell you, it brought a tear to my eye and a lump to my throat.
The light turned green. I exchanged one last glance with the guy in the sweater so I smiled and waved to him as I drove away, feeling a brief moment of solidarity with him even though I will probably never seen him again. "I love this country so much," I thought as I drove out to cast my own vote.
-Ingrid Garland
