day after

Elections are over. In my younger days, election days meant more because I was more involved in the process. I was a hack, and at heart, I probably still am one. But I am no longer so emotionally involved in elections.

Conversations with family or friends often followed this line:

So, if your boss loses the election, you no longer have a job?

Yes, I would reply.

Oh, they would say.

And then someone would immediately change the subject.

But election day always meant getting up at 4:00 am, meeting other kindred souls, and going to polling places and putting up yard signs. Once, in 1984, I went with some college kids in Waco to put out signs in rural precincts. The kid who was driving hit a cow. I can still see the look on the cow's face as it moved away from the car after he stepped on his brakes. It was a black cow, on a dark morning, on an unlit road.

Because farmers are liable for loose cows, and I mean that in the unpenned up sense, they often don't go and claim cattle that is road kill. That poor boy's car was really torn up. A bad omen for a bad election day. The cow must have had similar thoughts.