Today the long-awaited and anticipated day has finally arrived: Election Day 2020. Bound to become a memorable day! At the moment, I am sitting in the car outside the Dummerston Church, which is the Town of Dummerston official polling place. That's right - a holdover, I guess, from the era when town and church were combined. The Lower level of the church where Sunday school is held is also equipped with voting booths. Normally they are folded up against the wall and serve as cork bulletin boards, but today they swing out and become booths. There seem to be no lines at all at the moment. Not too many cars in the parking lot either. We were told by Eliza Bergh (who is now apart-time Assistant Town Clerk), that 70% of. registered voters in Dummerston had voted absentee. Ellen is actually back at the house making two kinds of soup for the poll workers for supper. They'll enjoy that!! So I need to be back a bit after 4:00pm so she can deliver the soup by 4:30pm. That gives me about 1 1/2 hours to blog.
Earlier today, we drove over to Keene, to Ted's Shoes and Sport, to pick up a new pair of New Balance sneakers, size 12B. They feel good on my feet, and I am hopeful that they will take care of my foot problem. You can sort of see them here:
I am remembering what is probably the most memorable election day of my life: the Election of 1952. The election itself was not hugely consequential, but the day was memorable for me personally. Here is the story:
I was a senior at Drury College in Springfield, MO. I was 19 years old, and thus not able to vote - you had to be 21 to vote in those days. But my roommate, David Sweet, was very politically involved and a passionate Democrat. The candidates that year were General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Republican, and Gov. Adlai Stevenson of Illinois, the Democrat. David was an avid Stevenson supporter, and he announced that he wanted to be in Springfield, IL, Stevenson's home, that evening, to hear Stevenson give his acceptance speech (he was sure he would win). Did I want to go with him? I was always up for an adventure, so I said yes. Neither of us owned a car, so our only mode of transportation was to hitchhike! Much more common back then than it is today. If we left first thing in the morning we figured we could make it in time to hear the speech - a trip of about 250 miles or so.
We walked out to the edge of town to Highway 66 (yes! that famous highway) to St. Louis, put out our thumbs, and - WOW! The first car to stop was a soldier heading to Peoria, IL! He would go right by Springfield, IL! We would be there by noon! Amazing! We had less than an hour to congratulate ourselves, however. About 50 miles down the road, the engine on the car conked out. It just stopped running. I forget what the problem was - I think maybe it was a timing chain - something major, in any case. So there we were, and now we were faced with a dilemma. The car was a convertible, and it was packed with the soldier's possessions. He had to hitchhike to a phone and get a tow-truck (no cell phones back then), and he was loathe to leave his car unattended because there was no way to secure it. He asked us if we could stay with the car and guard it while he went for help. That would delay us, but we were nice guys and we felt we could still make it to Spfld. IL in time. So we said yes. It turned out that it took over two hours for him to get back with a tow-truck, but it was only about 11am - we could still make it!
Problem was that our luck changed. Nobody stopped for a long time, and we got only short rides when we did manage to get a ride at all. It was late evening when our ride dropped us off at a filling station right at the Chain of Rocks Bridge over the Mississippi River at St. Louis. We weren't even in Illinois yet! We went inside very discouraged, and heard a radio playing. Someone was speaking - it was Adlai Stevenson! And he was giving his concession speech! He had lost the election! (Stevenson carried only ten states: Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South and North Carolina, Kentucky and West Virginia! That's how much the electoral map has changed!).
So that was the end of that! Nothing to be done but head back to Drury. And what do you know - a guy in a Lincoln Continental pulled in for gas heading west - an Air Force Colonel as I recall - and when we explained our plight, he said - "climb in!" We were able to get some sleep in the back seat (nice car!!) and we were back in the dorm in a few hours. We were actually back in time to get breakfast and make an 8 o'clock class!
So that was Election Day 1952
Four years later, Eisenhower ran for re-election and Stevenson ran against him again! That hasn't happened many times in U.S. history. Stevenson lost again, of course (despite the fact that Eisenhower had a major heart-attack in 1955!). In 1956, Stevenson carried only seven states: Missouri, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South and North Carolina! He failed to carry his home state of Illinois in both 1952 and 1956! But he was a fine man, and an outstanding speaker. But he was up against a very popular general who had "won" WW2 in Europe.
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