November Sunday

Sitting in the nearly empty parking lot of the Midland Library (it's a large library that sees a lot of use) before it opens, eating my weekend breakfast of an English muffin sandwich with bacon, egg and cheese, and a small carton of milk (it's funny, when I ask for milk, they nearly always respond with "white milk or chocolate milk?"  As though those were the two types of milk!) and marveling happily to myself at the nearly steady stream of cars circling through.  They are all dropping their votes in the large Ballot Box which is in the back of the parking lot.  Keep voting, people, keep voting!

The peach of the day, however, was an old Ford pickup truck, very large, which had originally been blue, but was now 90 percent rust.  At least 90 percent.  It had a two-by-four fence around the bed, rickety and broken down on one side, and was making a dreadful racket -- blap-blap-blap, very loud.  The driver was a tiny little wrinkled-up lady -- barely big enough to see over the dash, and you could see her head tipped sharply back to manage it.  She maneuvered the monstrous beast (blap-blap-blap) through the parking lot, and up to the ballot box, and her tiny hand on her scrawny arm came shakily out of the window and slowly, carefully (shakily) deposited her ballot envelope.  I wanted to stand up and cheer.