November 2, 2010
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Election Day
On the way up to Sunshine to vote, as my new old rustbucket climbed the grade out of the Montana Creek gully, I laughed aloud and Doug grunted a query. I said I’d been thinking of how to word a sign to hang on the back of the car to explain that I can drive just fine but the car isn’t capable of keeping up with traffic. My first idea was just a simple banner saying, “rustbucket.” I told Doug I could shorten it to “heap,” but that word is so old and obsolete almost nobody would get it. We tried several ways of expressing the idea, eventually getting around to modifying some perennial bumper stickers. I said, “My other car actually runs.” Doug came up with, “I’d rather be driving.”
Pretty lame in retrospect, but our little word game kept us laughing through the miles of slushy roadway and heavy snowfall. We also got a few laughs out of the wipers, this being the first time in this car that we’ve needed to use them. The knob on the dash has a setting for, “intermittent,” but the car’s idea of intermittent wipers is half a stroke and stop with the wiper in vertical position. On the next bump, the wiper starts moving again, and doesn’t stop.
The rubber shuddered and dragged noisily after the first stroke or two, and the knob is in an inconvenient position for a driver to operate without taking eyes off the road, so I assigned Doug the job of turning the wipers on when snow built up on my side, off when they got noisy. He got distracted – no surprise there, he is always getting distracted – but at least voice commands: “WIPERS!” were less hazardous than feeling and fumbling about for that knob.
On the way up we met a sand truck. A snowplow was just ahead of us in the road when we turned off at the polling place. Poll workers were commenting about the healthy turnout. It is rare to ever encounter lines or waits in the Upper Su Valley, especially in a snowstorm. Often for past elections, our car has been the only one in the parking lot at the fire hall. Today there were half a dozen vehicles there when we arrived and at least that many different ones there as we were leaving. It makes me wonder whether the hot issue for most of them is the bond proposition for schools and libraries (unlikely to pass, if history is any indication) or the crazy race for U.S. Senate.
Unless Joe Miller or Scott McAdams achieves a stunning majority (unlikely, I think), we probably won’t know until December, after all the write-in votes have been counted, whether we’ve got a new Senator, of if Lisa Murkowski has made history by winning a write-in vote. The last I heard, legal types are still discussing whether Anchorage radio personality Dan Fagan’s attempt to thwart Lisa by offering prizes to people (especially those whose names are similar to Murkowski’s) for registering as write-in candidates, is a legal exercise of his First Amendment rights or some form of election tampering.
It used to be that Alaska barely got a mention in national election news, what with our small population and the fact that often a presidential election had already been decided before our polls closed an hour after Californias. Lately “little” Alaska has figured more largely in national politics than some of us appreciate. Ah, well, at least we can provide the Lower 48 with a little comic relief.
Comments (7)
Comic relief is right.
My van kind of putts along when starting out from a stop sign/light. I keep telling my daughter I’m going to put a sign on the back “0-60 in 45 minutes”
Why don’t you get a slow-moving vehicle sign like farmers use on tractors?
Well I say hurray for getting out there to vote! We have it easy here in Washington State, with mail in ballots, although sometimes it takes forever to count them all.
@dingus6 - Good idea! Thanks.
The door on the driver’s side of my car doesn’t unlock with the key. You open the passenger’s side, then reach in and put the key in, started the car then pull on the door handle several times or more to get it to pop up the lock. We have sweet talked it, cussed at it, gave it the shining light. Teen Dude and I have this daily dance as we are the first out in the am. I was thinking of putting a bumper sticker about how my vehicle gets my heart pumping each day. hehehe. Good for you for going through the weather to vote. WIPERS! I can hear ya now mom!
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