During an
election year before I was eligible to vote, I saw a political cartoon
that I’ve remembered ever since. The picture could summarize many
elections, but I suppose I enjoyed it initially because the message was
easy to understand.
The cartoon
appeared at the time of a national nominating convention for one of the
major parties. Their choice for presidential candidate was obvious before
the convention. There are palm trees in various states, but I think the
meeting was in Florida, which makes the message an especially appropriate
contrast to the situation this year.
The
cartoonist drew a man sitting under a palm tree. A basket also sat on the
ground under the tree. A large coconut hung directly above the basket.
There was a
sequel as the political convention concluded. Again the cartoon showed the
man sitting under the palm tree. His basket also sat there on the ground.
This time the big coconut was in the basket.
He waited.
The results came in.
This year's
election has been more exciting than that.
Even before
I knew that the results this time wouldn't be available for days or
longer, I felt more like an American because of the election events. I've
always been an American, and I know the rest of the country is always out
there somewhere, but this was more personal. I had just punched holes in a
ballot, and people all over the country had done likewise. Those actions
were represented by the colors on a map that fit within the borders of my
viewing screen. We had different voting preferences, but we were all in
the process together.
Not being a
parent, I won't be telling my grandchildren how close the voting was, but,
in a childlike way perhaps, I enjoy the sense of being part of something
historic. In this case, it's without the tragic overtones of people's
reports on what they were doing when they found out Pearl Harbor had been
bombed or President Kennedy had been assassinated — events with yearly
anniversaries not long after Election Day.
A family
letter that arrived a few days after this election commented, "Maybe
we should be renamed the United States of Division. We are certainly
divided on the proper person to be president."
Lopsided
victories can show widespread agreement. They can also be boring. Sports
fans like to see their teams win, but usually the games that receive the
most attention are ones in which the outcome is uncertain until the very
end. I think it adds interest to the whole political process when a
national election is closely contested.
I suppose
this is too close for comfort, but if repetition is the mother of
learning, there must be lessons we can learn from counting and recounting.
We'll have to figure out what they are, and there will be different ideas
on that. We probably have changes to make.
Some would
say that exciting and interesting aren't the right descriptive words for
this election. The extended period of waiting for results reminded me of a
play title in a modern drama course. "Waiting for Godot"
was classified as an example of theatre of the absurd.
Whatever our
feelings, we wait for the results, and we're not used to that. We’re an
increasingly impatient society. With fast food and fast cars and fast
communication, we want results without waiting.
Not that
long ago, our chicken dinners started with catching the chicken. Now we
pace the floor while we wait for a microwave oven to count down a few
minutes of cooking a frozen entree. Cars that take a while to pick up
speed after leaving a stoplight aren’t fast enough for us. At work, I
have my computer set to receive messages every minute, and I admit that
once in a while I check before a minute is up.
Not all of
life is high-speed technology, however. Waiting is an essential part of
living.
Job in
ancient days knew that. More than most of us, he experienced what it's
like to succeed and to lose. "All the days of my struggle, I will
wait," he said.
Growing
takes time, learning takes time, healing takes time, social change takes
time, political adjustments take time.
I think it
won’t hurt us to practice waiting.
For most of
us, life on the day we find out who won the presidential election won't be
too much different from how it was the day before we voted. If it happens
that we're living in a different place, driving a different vehicle or
working at a new job by the time we know who's going to move into White
House, the changes in our personal life since Nov. 7 will most likely be
unrelated to the election.
Who the next president will be
is not something I need to know right away. I'll wait and see.
I tend to be
ambivalent about Thanksgiving. Giving thanks is important, and a day with
that theme is fine. Traditional family gatherings are a good idea also,
but they aren’t necessarily convenient on a Thursday in a society where
family members are separated by hours of travel. To add to the complexity,
there's the possibility of wintry weather, the approaching deadlines that
students face near the end of the semester, plus the fact that in some
businesses it's one of the most demanding weeks of the year because of the
oncoming Christmas season. Thankfulness and refreshment of spirit can
easily get lost in rushed attempts to fulfill expectations for how the
occasion should be celebrated.