I’m writing this just 24 hours before the polls open in Lincolnville, 8 a.m. tomorrow, and for the first time in 48 years of voting in presidential elections I’m actually counting down those hours. I want it to be over.

 A quick scroll through Wikipedia reminded me of all those elections, all those candidates, which started for me in 1968 when I was 24 years old (18 year olds didn’t get the vote until 1971 when the 26th amendment to the Constitution was ratified — I checked). For those who weren’t old enough to be aware of the wider world in the late1960s, we’re all at least 60 years old today, it was a period of both upheaval and violence in our country, and the start of real and positive change. I remember.

 In 1963 Betty Friedan’s Feminine Mystique,the catalyst that started the women’s right movement, was published. Race riots broke out in Los Angeles, Cleveland, Newark, Detroit, Chicago, Washington, rioting in the face of the non-violent Civil Rights movement occurring in the South, a movement that apparently wasn’t moving fast enough. In 1969 the Stonewall riot in New York led to the modern fight for LGBT rights. All the while, free love (thanks to the pill), boys with long hair (thanks to the Beetles), psychedelic everything (thanks to Timothy Leary) thrummed in the background. It was a time to give the old folks fits.

 I have vivid memories of those violent events, albeit seen on a black and white TV screen, but it’s the assassinations my generation will never forget, starting with President Kennedy in 1963. Then, unbelieveably, five years later, Martin Luther King Jr. in April and President Kennedy’s younger brother, Robert in June, on the very night he secured the Democratic nomination for President. These were nightmares-coming-true for us, especially, I think, for young people, our idealism just flowering. Our parents and grandparents, on the other hand, had lived through three wars – WW I, WW II and Korea. They’d seen it all. In the late 60s it would be our generation’s turn, with Vietnam; somehow, these assassinations at home only punctuated the horror that was to come.

 And now, nearly 50 years later, we find ourselves at the end of a Presidential campaign that seems to have broken the boundaries of decent discourse. Name-calling and demonizing of whole groups of people, accusations of wrong-doing, woman-hating, bad judgement, poor temperament. I’m sick of it. We’re all sick of it.

Unless we’re sure of the “side” we’re on, we can barely speak to one another. Marriages are actually at risk, if, god forbid, he’s voting one way and she the other. Facebook posts have become poisonous. Some posts are so vile I can hardly glance at them before hitting “delete”.  We’ve all got family members we’d just as soon de-friend if only we didn’t have to pick up the pieces after this is all over.

All over. Yes. Tomorrow it will be all over.

Mock Election and the Real Thing

The voting booths are already set up in Lynx Gymnasium at LCS, ready for tomorrow (the polls are open 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., and you can register on the spot). When we voters show up tomorrow, we’ll see a neat row of red, white and blue booths lined up, along with desks of ballot clerks checking off voters, the vote tabulating machine, and, best of all, the UCC’s bake sale table (if you get there early enough!). All the election gear, which is considerable, was brought over from the Town Office last week by phys ed teacher Nick DePatsy, school custodian Alvin Milner, and principal Paul Russo under the direction of temporary Town Administrator Jodi Hanson.

“If you’ve got three guys doing something,” Paul told me, “you have to have a woman telling you how to do it.”  

Monday morning, our actual Town Administrator, David Kinney, out on medical leave, was pressed into service and helped with the logistics of setting up all that stuff.

 But the booths got a shake-down this Monday morning when the entire student body, grades K-8, voted in a mock election. Mrs. Russo’s social studies class of some seven students in grades 6 and 8, took on the election as a project, and is managing the mock version. Each student was assigned one of the candidates – four for President and the two Congressional candidates, studied their issues and wrote up a campaign presentation. Then they made a video of them, which was shown at last week’s Student of the Month assembly.

 The video was shown in each grade before they voted, and so based on those campaign pitches students decided how to vote. Or, perhaps they already knew how their parents will vote. Undoubtedly, they knew.

UPDATE at 2:30 p.m.:

THE RESULTS OF THE LCS MOCK ELECTION in which 192 votes were cast:

PRESIDENT:

Hillary Clinton                  71.8 % 

Donald Trump                  15.1 % 

Gary Johnson                      7.3 %

Jill Stein                              5.7 %

 2nd CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT:

Emily Cain                         70 %

Other LCS News

Tuesday afternoon, 4-6 p.m., needleworkers of all persuasians (knitters, quilters, stitchers, crocheters, beaders, etc.) will gather for their regular every-other-week session. You’d be surprised how many come; they pull together several tables, get out their projects, and spend a pleasant couple of hours together. All are welcome, so if you’re working on something, need help with it, want to show it off, or just visit, come by. The tea kettle will be on.

Saturday morning, 10 a.m. to noon Julie Turkevich invites children, with or without a parent, to her monthly Family Craft Project. This month it’s Thanksgiving placemats and table decorations. Julie will have plenty of colorful paper and decorative materials for creating the placemats and then laminating them. People are welcome to bring their own special images, designs and photographs to add too. Everyone may also make pumpkin centerpieces using painted paper towel rolls and decorations such as fall leaves. And there will be pages with Thanksgiving pictures to color. It’s free and it’s fun! I’m hoping to nab a couple of grandchildren to come with me that day.

Writers try hard to choose the right words to describe the scene or their feelings or their intentions. Last week I mentioned the wildness of Maine, comparing it to “other, more civilized places” (implying the town where I grew up). Indeed it was, where the houses sat chock-a-block together on the streets, the lawns were neatly mowed right out to the concrete curbs, the shrubs were tidy, the streetlights came on at dusk. The only animals that lived there were smartly-groomed little poodles and an occasional house cat. The suburbs. Civilized was the word that came to mind.

 But I meant no offense.

 The Maine I moved to as a young woman was none of those things. Wild and tangled forest started at the end of my quite untidy back yard; a muskrat once found its way into the homemade run we’d built for our mongrel dog. Cats prowled everywhere. Snow piled up to the window sills, power lines crashed down in storms, a moose crossed in front of us on a foggy road. And I couldn’t stop smiling.

Sleepy Hollow Rag Rugs has Advent Calendars from a Maine Farmhouse for sale now; these are scenes from my house that I painted some 25 years ago. When a friend saw them, she arranged that we have them printed at the Ellsworth American print shop and sell them as a joint venture. They’re $15 each, come in an envelope that can be mailed to faraway children or grandchildren, or just hang one on the wall by Dec. 1 so your own children can open each little door leading up to Christmas. No candy or Legos behind the door, just a tiny painted scene I imagined might be outside my window or inside our corner cupboard or pantry. Contact me, 789-5987, if interested.