Voting was easy. The polling place was up the street in a high school, and every time I go there I remember voting in a special election in 2001, right after 9/11. Took Gnat in the stroller. Seems like yesterday.
It only took a moment to mark my ballot, since I didn’t have to linger or eenie-meenie the candidates. Actually surprised myself a couple of times, though – it’s interesting how voting, like the prospect of hanging, concentrates the mind. I think it was that parody site to which I linked yesterday that made up my mind. For those of you who sent . . . peppery email about what a shill / hack / tool I am, I would have voted for Lieberman if I lived in Connecticut. Happily. As the woman with one child said, I’m a single issue voter.
Anyway, I have a column to write on the election tonight, which means staying up late and watching the returns, something I hate. At the moment it looks interesting; if I were an Iraqi I wouldn’t necessarily be booking a spot in the line to the embassy roof, but I’d be checking price and availability. So let me give you some grainy screen caps from 1996, extracted from the ongoing digitizing project. This is Chicago:
Food liquors EAT drink corned beef Rosen’s Bread. That would be Sam Rosen, who born in 1886. It’s possible he saw this sign; I hope so.
I thought this was older, but apparently it comes from 1975:
Mr. Submarine! This sign, on the other hand, obviously predates the seventies:
Still around. These were taken while I was in town to cover the Democratic Convention. Then, and now, the closed-captioning for the speeches was amusing:
Oh, but you just did! That was Greek, right?
Ah, the 90s. Good times. I remember when History ended. Damn: that felt good. Until it ruined everything by starting up again. Stupid history.
I should note it was a lovely day – overcast but warm. Took Gnat to church choir and read a wonderful, marvelous book; it’s by Robert Harris, who wrote “Fatherland” – a murder mystery set in an alternate Europe of the 1960s, a continent still run by Nazis – and “Pompeii,” an erudite page-turner novel about the eruption of Vesuvius. Now he’s produced “Imperium,” a biography of Cicero. Anyone with an interest in Rome or politics will love the book: trust me. It’s written in the voice of Tiro, Cicero’s slave and biographer, and unlike those books that pile on historical detail to construct a bygone world, it effortlessly recreates the mood and spirit of Republican Rome. Fascinating and engrossing, as the blurbs say. Enjoy! And have a fine day.
(No Fargo - busy.)
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