Singing a classic ballot

Early voting starts tomorrow in Maryland, and you can avoid the commotion of lining up on Election Day by going to this site and finding out how to vote early.  We go this way every time and it's easy in, easy out, and back on with your life.  Try it!

Don't fall for the foolishness in this story from Virginia and Florida, where unwary voters might be fooled by robocalls telling them they can now vote by phone.  They can't, and while it's still a mystery why anyone would believe anything they hear in a robocall from some anonymous entity...just don't believe it!

My favorite election memory involves a woman who lives right up the road from us.  Somehow she got elected to the Maryland House of Delegates twenty-some odd years ago, and served without great distinction for one term.  I went to the post office one morning and there she was, climbing into her car in front of the dry cleaner, a pile of hangered suits in her hand.

She even had her special "Maryland House of Delegates" license tag on her car, which was parked in front of the dry cleaner's establishment.  Right by the yellow-painted curb, meaning that she was parked in a fire lane.

Never one to be shy in the face of misdemeanors, I spoke right up, saying, "So!  You go to Annapolis to make the laws and you come home to break them?"

It wasn't her most statespersonlike moment when she looked back at me, hand all full of recently cleaned garments, and said, "But I'm in a HURRY!"

Well, sir, that November, before the days of early voting, we went over to the elementary school to vote, and guess who was standing on the parking lot, handing out fliers, asking for our vote?

"How could I vote for someone who violates traffic laws with impunity?" I asked, rhetorically.

"Oh, it's YOU!" she said, emphatically.

She lost the election, justifiably.