The Mountain Breeze: Vote

Vote. You see it written everywhere. Last presidential election in 2016, only one half of eligible voters even took the time to vote. Which leaves us where we are today in a nation dividing faster by the day.

I was raised on civic responsibility. One of my earliest memories is going to the polls in Roanoke City with my mother and grandparents. They voted at a fire station. In those days the votes were all paper. No stickers were handed out to people who voted. These were the people who lived through the Great Depression, WWII and stood by stoically as the Cold War raged. They voted because it was their duty to be, “We the people.”

Sometime in my early childhood, Soviet Khrushchev slammed the podium with his shoe. The Kennedy’s John and Bobby, sweated through the Cuban Missile crisis. It was a time people harken to great America but down in Selma, Alabama and other points south, peaceful marchers were flooded with water hoses and K-9’s attacked them. Churches burned, people were murdered and all because of the color of their skin. They just wanted to be treated as equals. Here in Virginia, Prince William County kept schools closed for five years to stop integration. There were some private schools with something like vouchers, but for the average student, no public education 1959-1964. My friend Bob Holland wrote about it during his time at the Richmond Times Dispatch. He wrote a book about the free schools. A time when America and Virginia were not so great.

As Jesus said, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” For a nation oft embodied to speak of our Christian heritage, we let that and “Love your neighbor as yourself,” fall on cold hearts and deaf ears as soon as we peel out for Sunday dinner at 12 p.m. from Sunday service. Be kind. It isn’t so hard.

By the time I was in school Vietnam replaced much of the talk about the Soviet Union as the battle for freedom also continued in segregated America. Every night CBS’s Walter Cronkite told us the body count. I thought that had to be the worst job in the war. Today people scream about Fake news but after 50 years, Ken Burns told us in his award-winning series on Vietnam last year, no one spun fake news better than the American government during the Vietnam War.

I voted for the first time in 1976. 18 had become the age of enlightenment for voters. I was thrilled. In the late 1910s my grandfather locked my grandmother in the bedroom to keep her from going to a suffrage meeting. A big gal like me, she climbed out of her window and down a tree and went off to the meeting anyway. She used to tell me, “Little girl, women like me worked hard to get you the right to vote. Never take it for granted.” I have voted in every major election since 1976.

Many women have fought hard to get their daughters and granddaughters opportunity. In the shadow of 2018, we have to keep the faith that what we vote for will help the future generations of our children and grandchildren. We have to try. But more importantly we have to vote for today. To keep this “One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

For all.

Freedom and equality have not always been part of the fabric of this country. American history tells us. But, the good people of this country have stood up, fought, voted and made the right changes. On Nov. 6, vote. Vote for the right America. But make sure you vote. Our country depends on it. Half of our nation cannot continue to sit on the sidelines. We must work together, “Indivisible.” For all.

–Cathy Benson and Cathy Benson photo: Troutville Park