to vote.

When I was sixteen, a junior in high school, I took an American History class at Severna Park High School with Mr. Haring. Everyone liked him because he was pretty nice and reasonable about late assignments, but occasionally he would get really fired up because either he felt like we weren't taking him seriously, or because of something socio-political.

I don't think I thought much about the electoral system at sixteen, the inherent importance of the right to vote our leaders and judges into office, or the gravity of living under the umbrella of democracy. It was not an election year and I think it is hard to conceptualize the value of our form of government here in America anyway, especially in high school, having seen so little of what is real nationally and more, spanning the globe. Mr. Haring knows American history like nobody I've ever talked to, and I remember he was talking about the Civil War, the fight for African Americans, among other things, to obtain the right to the vote, and I do not remember if someone made a comment or if the pressure in the air was just right to ignite the spark, but all of a sudden the man was raving. He was mad like we had never seen him mad before, drawing his lips thin and stroking his goatee with his index finger and thumb. He talked about our forefathers, our grandfathers' grandfathers, who died by bullet or bayonet in the Revolutionary War, fighting for sovereignty from Great Britain. He barked forward in history, talking about the war of 1812, and the glorious passion that lays sewn into the first American Stars and Stripes, in the words of Francis Scott Key as he wrote what would become our National Anthem. He talked about the Battle of Gettysburg, and our grandfathers, such a short while ago, fighting across the ocean. It was all for the sake of DEMOCRACY. I'll never forget his face, the frustration. He said that our forefathers, my father's father's father's father's father, gave up everything to protect American Democracy which, he continued, hinges on the individual's right to vote - our right to popularly elect our leaders. He said that in the 2000 election an absurdly low number of the voting population in America had actually showed up at a polling station to place a vote. The percentage was abysmal and Mr. Haring said that he had never been so disappointed with his fellow Americans.

A few weeks ago Mark and I visited a friend in Washington and went to the Museum of American History. There is an exhibit there with the real, war-torn, original American flag from the Battle of Baltimore in September of 1812. It's got pieces missing and it's threadbare, but it lays on a graduated spot-lit platform in an otherwise dark exhibit and it took my breath away. I want to remember the history of this country because it is gorgeously brave and heroic. Though the state of our country now, in many ways, breaks my heart, there is some foundational strength to be found in the fortitude, the intelligence, the wisdom, the grace and the faith of our founding generations. I am proud to be an American.

This morning I heard an interview on NPR Weekend Edition. The reporter was on the campus of Bowling Green State University in Ohio interviewing students about their intentions to vote or not to vote. Most of the students he spoke to said things like I'm probably not going to vote because I don't like either candidate or I don't want to have any part in electing Romney or Obama or I don't care who becomes President this time, neither one is saying anything relevant to me. (That last one really got me). All I could think of was that American History lecture and Mr. Haring ten years ago, how as long as I live I will never sit out an election, how casting my vote on an electronic ballot box in the city courthouse is the way I put my chips in, how I demonstrate my citizenship, how I say thank you to those who fought and died to guarantee that their children's children, myself, would be blessed to live in a democracy.