November 6, 2016 — On Tuesday, we’ll either have the first female President of these great states or we’ll have our first civilian. Either way, it’s historic. Either way, half the country is scared. I heard a radio joke, you know one of those little snippets they say between songs; the DJ said “on Tuesday Armageddon starts.” To me, it sort of feels like it. There is not much I like in this choice. Mind you, this isn’t intended to a political article so I’ll be brief on this point, but for me, a life-long (at least adult-life-long) Democrat, I’m not a fan of what’s going on in my party, not a fan of my party’s candidate, yet worried about the future of a Supreme Court chosen by a Republican, although firmly convinced, as is Fox News, that Mr. Trump is not a Republican. Neither, I feel, will represent me. So Armageddon, that reference gave me laugh, not a funny laugh, rather one of those nervous laughs because that pretty much sums up this election for me.

Okay, I can’t say Armageddon without me playing this. Love the Steve Clark footage in it! Although, I prefer him with his Les Paul. RIP Steve, one of my guitar influences, and thank you!

Back on topic, either way it goes, I don’t know where we’ll go politically, but I know where we’ve been, thoughts from my personal past, examples of the power of the people. The specific thing I’m remembering comes from my senior year in high school.

I went to a large public high school in Texas, a Dallas suburb with a well-know, wealthy school district. The physical school  had courtyards between separated buildings, think a bunch of connected H shapes, all with courtyards in the middle. They allowed us into one of those courtyards during our lunch period. Towards the end of the year, while sitting on the edge of this concrete fountain with no water, was born the idea that we’d make a chain of people all sitting on each others’ laps in a semi-standing, semi-crunched position. I don’t remember who started it. I just remember it started with two people, then a third, a fourth, a fifth, a sixth; then everyone wanted in, everyone was included. Eventually, there were hundreds of people out there, coordinating ourselves into letters first, then into words. The teachers were so angry. Eat, kids, eat, or we’ll shut down this courtyard. The teachers did not see the educational value in our letters or our words. Still, Pepsi (I think it was Pepsi), found out about it. They asked us to make our human domino chain into the word Pepsi for a commercial. We complied.

Notes were posted around “A-Hall”, the first hall in the H’s, the seniors’ hall. On the designated weekend day, hundreds of us showed up, from all cliques, of all types, wearing all different sorts of outfits, and coordinated ourselves, as we were accustomed to doing, this time on the field of our football stadium, into the word Pepsi. They took their pics and videos, and we were off. There is a pic of this in my senior yearbook, but right now I can’t find the yearbook, and I’m too sick to look. I’ll see if I can get the pic sometime this week. It’s funny, but more than the humor in it, it shows the power of people, the power of people cooperating towards a single goal.

So regardless of the results of this election, I have a thought, a thought of the future of this country, indeed of the entire planet. What if two people start it, add in people as we go, until …? The it: to think about the next person as you do yourself, the next family as you do your own, include us all, work together for the good of us all. What if we make the country we want? Then it doesn’t matter who becomes President of the United States. Oh, and I’m pretty sure that’s what they did in the very beginning, you know, those early meetings with the likes of two people … George Washington, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison. Okay, that’s, what, seven, not two, and I’m sure I’m leaving some out, but you get the picture. Or I can think of two, two who influenced my own personal views, John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. But as for Tuesday, and whatever we have or will end up with as a result of that, my vote is for us, the people of the country, indeed the world, to figure it out, starting with the first two. What can we spell? What can we spell if we try?