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The neighbors are restless

By Gloria Diaz

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Fort Wayne Reader

2004-10-25

For some reason, I get a kick out of voting. I don’t know why I get so excited about it, but maybe it’s the juvenile chance to write in a name for an office that has no chance of getting in. Like “Bart Simpson” for county council member at large, or “Mickey Mouse” for president.

This election though, I think it’s going to be a bit different. Oh sure, there are still going to be the jokers who write in bizarre selections for certain offices, but in talking to people, I’ve realized something: they’re not happy.

I’ve discovered more and more people disgusted with jobs being shipped out to India. People who were for the war in the beginning are now against it. And these aren’t people who are starving to death. These are my neighbors, working, retired, unemployed, some who know someone serving overseas, others who have no connection with the soldiers other than a tally of which ones died today on the evening news. A retired fellow who sometimes mows my lawn says whatever jobs are being created by the Bush administration are low paying positions that won’t begin to support a family of two, let alone a typical family of four. It’s seeing political signs pop up on neighbor’s lawns who don’t normally seem politically interested in things.

The neighbors are restless. And that’s a good thing.

It’s seeing my mother get interested in voting for the first time in 12 years. She spent a lot of time this summer watching CNN and the national news and occasionally Fox News. She always thought war was a waste. She asked me if there was any way she could vote absentee. Sure mom, I’ll get a ballot for you. She filled it out a few days ago and I sent it in.

If my mom was upset enough to vote, I know she was deeply upset with the way things were going. Together we’d watch the news, and usually things like people dying in a war don’t bother me, but one morning was different. For some reason, the deaths in Iraq had either reached a nice even number, or it was close to Memorial Day, or there was something going on to where they flashed the war casualties on the screen with how old they were. They weren’t old. None of them were. And it made me think back to when I was 18, 19, 20. What the hell was I doing then? I was still waiting for my life to unfold, and I looked at the screen at these kids who were that same age, and they were dead. They had lived half their lives at age nine, age 10.

And I cried.

No one knows when we leave this earth. We only know it’s a guarantee we leave sometime, and that when we do, we hopefully have reached some goals we set for ourselves, made a few people happy, acted in a way to make ourselves and our loved ones proud. Hopefully, these soldiers did that. But it’s hard to accomplish that in maybe 20 years of life. Because at that age, you think there’s so many more years to live. So much more to experience.

And I’ll think about that, this election day, when I show up at Bishop Dwenger High School to cast my ballot. I’m alive, and I can vote. And I’ll do it gladly. Why?

Because, like my neighbors, I’m restless. And that’s a good thing.