Stall Warning
Brittney has a nice post about her voting experience today. She mentioned that some folks were taking their children in to vote with them. That brought back some memories about how my mom used to always take me into the voting booth with her.
I never remember anything about my dad's voting procedures other than he always admonished me to "vote for the weakest Democrat in the primary so that they'll have a worse candidate to run against us." (italics mine-sentiment his.) Hell, I was only eight years old. Maybe he thought I was giving Mom advice while we in the booth since he wasn't able to stand there and remind her who to vote for. He was definitely a believer that the only reason women got the right to vote was to give married men two votes as opposed to single (gay?) men.
So anyway, Mom always took me into the voting booth with her and I remember the rush of civic grownup pride I got hearing that half curtain whoosh shut behind us and how cool it was to pull the big lever that locked in your votes. In retrospect, it really was like pulling the handle on a slot machine.
On the other hand, Mom taking me into the ladies room stall with her...not so cool.
But ever since we stopped that practice at about age six, I've pretty much established the "one person per stall" rule. No matter how many times certain bloggers invite me to the Greyhound station for lunch.
I never remember anything about my dad's voting procedures other than he always admonished me to "vote for the weakest Democrat in the primary so that they'll have a worse candidate to run against us." (italics mine-sentiment his.) Hell, I was only eight years old. Maybe he thought I was giving Mom advice while we in the booth since he wasn't able to stand there and remind her who to vote for. He was definitely a believer that the only reason women got the right to vote was to give married men two votes as opposed to single (gay?) men.
So anyway, Mom always took me into the voting booth with her and I remember the rush of civic grownup pride I got hearing that half curtain whoosh shut behind us and how cool it was to pull the big lever that locked in your votes. In retrospect, it really was like pulling the handle on a slot machine.
On the other hand, Mom taking me into the ladies room stall with her...not so cool.
But ever since we stopped that practice at about age six, I've pretty much established the "one person per stall" rule. No matter how many times certain bloggers invite me to the Greyhound station for lunch.
posted by ceeelcee at 1:31 PM
3 Comments:
My mother in law still tells of how my father in law MADE her vote for Nixon instead of Kennedy.
I remember going into the voting booth with Mom at the old Lipscomb school. I think that was the year she voted for Carter.
I kinda miss the curtain.
I always used to go into the voting booth with my Mom too, all thru the late '60s and much of the '70s. I don't remember ever going when my Dad voted but that was likely because he probably always made that stop on the way home from work...
One time, my grandfather let me pull one of those old fashioned levers in a voting booth.
It just occurred to me he was the head of the Republican party at the time.
And it was the Nixon years.
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