Voting

Yesterday was a rainy, cool, dreary day, but I went out in it anyway.  I went to vote.  The County Services Building is where the Florence County Voter Registration office is now, and from the looks of the parking lot I figured there would be a line.  Wow.  There wasn’t just a line but a crowd.  It was nice to see several friends volunteering behind the counter, treating the voters with courtesy and a smile.  And with prayers, which I’m sure  they were saying in their hearts as they went about their chores.

In the waiting room every seat was taken and thirty or forty other folks were standing, milling around.  Another would-be voter already waiting instructed me what to do – hand in your registration card at the window and they’ll call you.  I handed in my card, explaining about the cruddy condition of it (jeans pocket, washing machine), and found a handy spot along a wall to wait.

I asked a woman close to me how long she’d been there.  Twenty minutes so far, she said, but they had told her there would be about half an hour’s wait.  I figured I could last that long.  In a few minutes a married couple I hadn’t seen since Tim died came in, handed in their cards and then stood with me, catching up on a little news.  As more and more people shoved their way into the room, closing ranks was tough – three doorways had to be kept clear.  A good bit of shifting went on and some folks edged their way out into the hallway, staying within earshot.

A woman came out from behind the counter with a handful of registration cards and started calling out names.  Not to let us go vote, just to return our cards.  We had been entered into the computer and had been found worthy (eligible) to vote there.  Soon we would be called again, this time to sign our absentee application.  After that we would be escorted to another room where electronic machines were kept under the secure eagle-eye of other staff.

Thirty minutes after my arrival, my name was called and I elbowed my way to the counter where a clean and shiny card was handed to me!  My old one had gone through the washer and dryer several years ago. Though thoroughly scotch-taped up from stem to stern it had remained readable, but now I had a spick and span new edition.  It was nice of the clerk to do this considering everything else she had to do, and all the disgruntled voters she had to do it for.

I gratefully accepted the card and tried to return to my spot to chat with my friends again.  No such luck, I wound up across the room, alone with my thoughts (and prayers) in the crowd.

Forty-five minutes after my arrival my name was called again.  I signed the application form and a lady escorted three of us voters a few yards down the hall to the relative peace and quiet of the voting room.  In less than five minutes I made my selections, chose “Yes” on all the amendments, rechecked my choices and that was it. I had officially voted.

The last time it took me that long to vote was another Presidential election, that one on the regular day and at my regular precinct.  A very long line, somewhat noisy but friendly, zigged and zagged across the Delmae cafetorium.  Tim was with me and we kept seeing people we knew as we inched our way forward so the time didn’t seem to pass too slowly. We were there probably an hour and a half despite the fact we’d gone in the middle of the morning, usually the least busy hours.

I hate to think what the lines and the waits will be like this election day. I’m glad I was eligible (being 65 now) and made the effort to vote early, rain or no rain.

Fall is falling

Such lovely blustery sky

I went to the Florence Museum yesterday to look at the exhibits in the new Art Competition. No, the photo here wasn’t among them… it’s one I took on a mountain top in Germany last January.  I just like it.

At the Museum, my brother Harold and nephew Jesse’s entries were selected for inclusion in the show, and I wanted to see them in relationship to everything else. There were several sculptures and a good many paintings, but most of the entries were photographs. There were a couple of other things I wouldn’t really call art, such as an old beat-up tricycle with a foot in place of one wheel, and a lovely pottery jar. One thing I really liked was a “bonsai” tree, except that it was all hand-made from wire wrapped tightly around and around the trunk and branches, which themselves had been fashioned from wire into a frame. It was remarkably detailed and exquisite, I thought.

I liked most of the paintings and photographs. Some were black and white, some were very large, some were quite colorful, and some were striking in their simplicity and talent. Stephen told me a little about each artist, and sometimes a little something about the media used in the particular piece. It’s so nice to have the curator be my nephew…

I especially enjoyed two large photos by the same person, one of trees in all the fall colors in a forest and the other reflections of it on water, but it looked like the water itself was burning. Stephen showed me around, and while I couldn’t quite picture the fire-on-water or water-on-fire as being a reflection of the fall foliage in the other photo, he said if they had been hung one under the other, I’d see it immediately. That made me wish he had hung them like that.

Stephen did an excellent job planning where to hang everything, considering the size, subject matter, colors, media, etc., etc. I asked if he ever switched them around but he said no, not after they were finally hung.

As soon as this show is finished around the middle of November, another one goes up. That one is all two-dimensional (no sculptures or odd-shaped peculiar stuff) miniatures. Paintings, sketches and photographs will be included, and that appeals to me. I told him I’d come take a look at the appropriate time, but I think I’ll ask how you go about submitting something. I’m looking at trees and flowers and buildings and people, even street signs and blades of grass with an eye toward composition… hmmm.

Prototypes

1690 map including Garden of Eden

Adam and Eve were put in the Garden of Eden, not created there. That’s the answer to a trivia question I sometimes ask Bible study groups I teach. For some odd reason, maybe the fact that the current worldwide economic meltdown sounds a lot like end-time prophecies to me, beginning-time stuff began to drift through my brain yesterday.

What was outside the Garden? Obviously it wasn’t a paradise like the Garden was, else why put the offending couple out? And from the job description Adam had, not only was it not a paradise, it was not a pleasant place. Not a cultivated farm or even a cleared field, it was just plain planet, wild and raw.

Really it was raw material, waiting for something to be done with it. Cut, clear, plow, plant, build, tame, explore, investigate, map, inhabit, organize, civilize.

Without a how-to manual, the best way to go about all this would be to remember the Garden. The prototype. We don’t know how long Adam worked in the Garden, but work he did. He had time to get to know the place, see how things worked, including all those animals. He named the animals, after all. God let Adam do that and whatever Adam wanted to call an animal, that’s what it was. Elephant? Okay, fine. Ostrich? Sure, why not.

People speculate about whether the Garden was real or figurative, and if real, about its location. The named rivers in Genesis only give us a partial clue. I think it was a real place. Its design gave Adam enough information to survive in the wilderness outside, the rest of planet earth.

So I think the Garden was a prototype. It was God’s pattern of order and organization for the rest of the planet. I think the planet earth is a prototype, too, but that’s another story.

We could use one of God’s prototypes on Wall Street these days…