American Views Abroad

 
Our ballots arrived from Kings County, New York, better known as Brooklyn, and were dutifully sent off on Thursday. The local post office here is used to handling the odd, slightly too large envelope that contains the ballot. Instead of paying 1.70 euros, we have to hand over 3 for air mail which, hand on heart, has never bothered us. However, it does seem to bother German postal workers. For the primary ballot, one employee decided in one quick move to fold the side to make it smaller. I have to admit being horrified, but she couldn't imagine they wouldn't understand this in New York. This time around the kind person decided it should go registered mail and gave me two receipts, using our first names on each. Rather odd in this country having a perfect stranger uttering my first name.

Odd too was no Republican candidate for the House running in our district. Not that we felt inclined to vote Republican, but in reports about the outer boroughs of NYC following the last election, the trend was slightly pro-Bush compared to the rest of the city. Growing up in NYC you learn a fact of life other Americans might not register. Our teachers back then hammered into us that our votes don't count as much as those voting from smaller states. Certainly not for President and considering how tribal NYC politics has always been and more to the point, living among 8 million and in Brooklyn no less (back then, before the real estate boom) didn't help the ego. Let's not forget those unique New York voting machines where, even as schoolchildren, we were warned that if we made one wrong move, our vote was nil, cancelled. Perhaps 2004 was the first time I felt my vote might actually count.

My district suffered so many victims on 9/11, almost equally divided between firemen and those who worked in the WTC. The last time I walked through my old neighborhood was in May 2003 and what struck me were the yellow ribbons, the support our military signs in windows or on lawns, the God Bless Our Troops display in the garden of the Catholic elementary school I attended. One street, very close to where I used to live (and thus my and my children's voting address), was hit especially hard and I recall being jolted when turning the corner and seeing the telephone polls painted red, white and blue, huge flags on every house and lawn, with all sorts of other signs crying out in pain in remembrance. On every house, save one. On both sides of the street. Back in Manhattan that day I tried to explain to friends what I experienced. Yet, I found I was in another world. The mood there and especially at Ground Zero was sadder, slower, more reflective. I kept asking friends if I were seeing things right. Were people there actually walking slower? Taking more time to help out strangers? They were indeed. Things had definitely changed.

Change? We'll see what, if anything, changes come election Tuesday this November.

At Home Abroad in the IHT -- Getting a Ballot at www.iht.com/articles/2006/10/27/news/aballot.php.
- posted by Gloria @ 7:24 PM