Imagine sitting at a team meeting at work. How would you answer this question: What is one thing that people in this room would be surprised to know about you but would never guess?
If you’re like me, your first thought would be to write down something that’d make them scratch their head. Initially, the answer in my grasp was formed around having 13 tattoos — or about 12 more than anyone at the office has seen. But that quickly went out of mind as that little tidbit will have to come out over time. So, my choice was to go with the fact that despite being deathly afraid of open water, I’ve snorkeled on the two largest barrier reef systems in the world, the Great Barrier Reef off the coast of Australia in the Pacific Ocean and the Belize Barrier Reef in the Atlantic Ocean. Pretty tame, definitely not provocative.
Considering where we are in our country’s history, obviously a pivotal moment in time for the good ole U. S. of A., this hardly-known fact might have really turned up the conversation: the last time I registered to vote …
there was no crying in baseball according to Tom Hanks- Sir Mix-a-Lot talked a lot about his baby and her “back”
- and Joey Buttafuocco was having a really bad year
You read that right. It’s not that I have never voted, but my last voter registration card was made about the time “grunge” became a thing back in the fall of 1992. So, yeah, it’s been awhile.
There was no chance to vote in the presidential election in 1988 because I wasn’t 18 yet (although it was interesting having Michael Dukakis speak at our high school that October). But in ’92, it was the cool thing to do and I HAD to join in. Everyone under 25 was going to Rock the Vote, or at least that’s what it felt like. It was our turn to make a difference, to effect change.
Funny what an affect listening to Arsenio Hall had on people.
I’ve been eligible to vote for the presidency five other times, not to mention local and state elections that my opinion could have been voiced, but chose not to. I couldn’t tell you why I didn’t vote in 1996 other than, after spending the late part of the summer in Atlanta at the Olympics and then moving to southern Illinois in the fall, I just didn’t know where to register and didn’t try to find out. The likely culprit was also the expectation that Bill Clinton was a shoe-in to repeat in my mind. In 2000, my residency had been established in North Carolina but my enthusiasm, or lack thereof, with the candidates wasn’t enough to make me bother. In 2004, 2008 and 2012, again my outlook was that it was a forgone conclusion as to the outcome and wasn’t sparked into action.
Everything about being able to vote that first time was dripping with a savory tease of being an adult. It was like sex, drugs and rock and roll rolled into one geeky afternoon. There was a high that was awesome, of doing something new, fresh. Then, after that, being an adult wasn’t enough of a draw to make me get off the canvas and ring the bell.
The allure wore off and by the time I started acting like an adult in other ways, not voting was just a normal thing to me despite being the opposite of everyone else. My right to abstain became a way of life when it came to politics. Charlie Dalton and Mr. Keating would have been proud.
Or would they?
Most of the time I think that what makes America America is that I have the right to say “No, I don’t want to participate.” And I can skip out, no matter what it’s about. I’m free to do that. Granted, I shouldn’t get to bitch about taxes, or the condition of the economy, or how the country is being run, but if I don’t want to vote, so be it. I’ve taken that seriously by not complaining or ever getting into arguments about those things or our government’s actions. For the most part, it hasn’t registered on my radar at any level, just going about my business and keeping them out of my business as much as possible.
Yes, sometimes it’s nice to have blinders on, and I did for years. I let myself off society’s hook because of an unwillingness to invest the time or gain the knowledge needed to make a reasoned decision on who to vote for. I just didn’t do it. Nike would not be happy with me.
That time has probably run its course, though, as this political season has really rung up a case for getting out and voting again.
I don’t have a lot of basis from the past to judge this year on, but still, it seems that this presidential election is a mass conglomeration of ideas that few people are really pumped about and even fewer want to listen to. No candidate has come across as trustworthy enough to garner strong public admiration, and neither seems approachable nor entirely focused on facts that matter to everyday people. My basis for that supposition comes after watching both nominees speak at their respective national conventions. That’s how bad this has gotten: I actually watched most of the DNC, and went back and viewed the Republican nominee’s speech online.
If I’m going to do this voting thing, I need to have a knowledge base to formulate an opinion. Unfortunately, neither candidate is dropping much knowledge, as the youngsters say (do they still say that?). What they’re dropping is shitbombs and all of it stinks. It’s based on so few facts, and instead a trucker hat and pant suit worth of rhetoric and bluster. One is baiting, and with the way our 140-character attention span works today, the other has to respond.
Neither seem to have that sure-fire presidential aura. But, somewhere it says that one of them has to win. And it scares the shit out of me to think of the one taking the oath of President on Jan. 20, 2017. So much so that it’ll get this 45-year-old to vote for the second time in his life. In fact, I just registered to vote tonight. Here’s to hoping you won’t be like me all those years and instead join me.
Six-7 Offsuit 