Today I decided to vote. I have not voted since I was 18 or 19 (I do not remember) and have not been in a church for about four years. Today, I voted in a church.
It was a very nice fall day today; so I decided to walk to my polling place. I also had a few errands to run along the way. While walking to Walgreen’s, I ran into an old friend who was clearly involved in a drug deal. I said “oh hey” and kept on my way as to not disrupt the process of the whole thing. I then got to the Walgreen’s where I accidentally threw away my Oregon issued driver’s license I never switched over to Illinois on the day of my friend’s bachelor party. I did what I had to do at Walgreen’s and walked to the church… the same church where I smoked my first cigarette with a friend now dead.
I then got my ballot and instructions from a kind old man on how to not mess up voting. I checked my texts because my police officer friend told me which judge I should vote for earlier this morning. I immediately messed up my ballot and the kind old man said:
“I’ll void this ballot… your last name?” I told him my last name and he said “Your grandparents… Audrey? And your grandpa was Bill?”
I said, “Yep, you got it.” He then asked me to talk to him after I had finished voting.
So I got down to business and voted. Afterwards the kind old man took my ballots and then proceeded to explain how he knew my grandparents…
“Your grandma was the maid of honor at my wedding. When Bill and Audrey lived in Rolling Meadows, way back in the 60’s… Audrey… she…”
“Yeah, she went when I was 19.”
“Not that long ago… your grandpa was a sheet metal worker, moved out to Schaumburg. Then it was unincorporated… we had no idea where it was!”
I smiled. Asked his name. And said “Small world huh?” I put my headphones back in and started walking home. There are tornado sirens because it’s the first Tuesday of the month, I can hear them over my music… a fire truck screams by, almost at the same time I pass the house I once stopped at while driving home one night because it was on fire, and I helped the man who’s house was burning, as I got a text from a friend saying “I feel sick”, as I fumbled to reply to because I was lighting a cigarette… a habit I haven’t given up since that first one at that church… as I walk down the same street, in the same neighborhood, Bill and Audrey moved into “way back in the 60’s.”
God Bless America.
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