Possessed

Election Day is now just four days away. And not a moment too soon. Unless, of course, it is too soon, and Barack Obama needs still more time to convince the majority of the American people that he's their best, really their only, hope to start turning this oil-tanker ship of state in another direction. There isn't any more time left, though; and if people haven't gotten the message, his message, by now, I don't think they will. I'm trying to remain positive and hopeful, trying not to worry, not to think what it would mean if he loses. But it's almost impossible. No matter what the polls say, or the talking TV heads, or the New York Times, the Washington Post, hell, the Davis Enterprise—I've been around the political campaign/election day block a few times, myself (most of us over the age of 40 have been similarly), and I know all too well that Charlie Brown-Lucy-and-the-football syndrome—every time, Lucy convinces Charlie Brown that this time, she'll keep the football right where he can kick it, and every time, just as he swings his foot forward, she snatches it away and he falls flat. So, I worry, read the paper, listen to NPR, worry, talk to my friends, fret, watch Jon Stewart, worry some more.

It's the voting that will determine the outcome, of course. All of our votes, whether cast by mail, or in an early-voting polling place, or on Tuesday. Barack Obama has done all he can, and he'll continue to campaign right up until the last possible minute. But, come Tuesday, when he enters the voting booth and marks his ballot, he, like all the rest of us, gets one vote. Just one. It gets counted along with all the rest of the one votes, and, God willing, there will be enough ballots marked with "Obama/Biden" to push him over the top. But, until that's a certainty, I'll worry.

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Postscript: Tony Hillerman died this past Sunday. His mystery novels introduced me to the Navajo people and their culture; his Navajo Tribal Police officers, Lt. Joe Leaphorn and Sgt. Jim Chee, were as interesting as the plots of the stories, themselves, and they grew as people with each succeeding title. I don't recall exactly when I read my first Hillerman, but it must have been in the late 1980s, and by the time my friend Robin and I took our epic three-week car camping trip to the Four Corners region in fall 1991, I was eager to see the territory and its people that Hillerman's stories had described. When, sitting in a little cafe in Tuba City, eating a Navajo taco, a Navajo Tribal Police vehicle pulled up outside and two uniformed officers came in, I was beside myself with glee. So thank you, Tony Hillerman; I'll miss you.