Election

Last Tuesday was Election Day! Wow! It sure is strange to participate as a regular voter. I found my polling place with no problem. It is the Arlington County Art Museum across the street. All the politicos were lined up along the street, handing out literature. One of the political volunteers led me to the wheelchair accessible door, showed me the elevator, put me on it, and then pushed the button for the wrong floor, thereby sending me on a merry tour of the museum!
She must have been a Republican!

All was just as it should have been in the little, tiny polling place. Arlington uses the Winvote, machine whereas we in Falls Church had chosen the Accuvote.

Computer smart

OMG - my computer monitor broke. It seems I am totally dependant on having a computer. I can't bank , I can't shop (which is probably a good thing since I can't bank or figure out my finances!), I can't request Metro Access access after 4:30 PM, I can't communicate with my friends, I can't play my favorite games, L can't play my music... Just imagine how quickly all this has happened. In '75, when I went to college, no one had a computer. Now college kids have never had to live without one.

NEXT DAY
The problem is solved now. Sue and Ron went shopping and bought me a new monitor and Ron connected it. Everything on it looks bright and new.

Back when I was in college (well, actually the summer before I went to college), I actually got a job that was supposed to involve writing programs for a great big main-frame computer. Ha, ha!) It happened because Dr. O'Brien, a UVa med school professor and the father of my friend Colleen, was interested in helping out a high school kid, so he decided to give such kid a job in his office. He'd done so in prior years with two girls who actually were computer and math whizzees, and it had workked out well.

Well, silly man, he asked Colleen if she knew anyone real smart who needed a job. Silly Colleen said. "Debbie Taylor".

I ain't that kinda smart.

The first day he handed me a book about how to write computer programs. It had something to do with sequences and binary numbers (whatever they may be). He told me to write a simple program that acted as an index to a bunch of programs.

I worked on it all day and had to ask lots of questions.

On the second day I began retyping Dr. O'Brien's address book, which was my my main job the rest of the summer.

Oh - and make his tea. I also made the perfect cup of tea.

For some reason, he never hired me again.

a blast from the past

I went and voted absentee today. That took a bit of courage, because I haven't been back in the office since the electoral board from hell fired me for being in a wheelchair. They had everything set up for absentee voting exactly the way I used to set it up. So they must think I had it set up correctly, right? (Except that they didn't have a sample ballot posted on the door, which is something I always used to do, and which is something that seems like a good idea to me.) I never used a paper pollbook and wrote voters names in it when conducting absentee voting. I always assumed the absentee ballot applicant list was the pollbook. The evil and incompetent and ill informed Secretary of the Electoral Board from hell made it a big deal that I wasn't using paper pollbooks and put on a big show of demanding that they be used, but now I see that they aren't using them again. Could it be that she found out that she was wrong?

The reason I went to vote is because Jim Moran is on the ballot, and I feel he's always done an excellent job.

Voting is so important and such a unique privilege and so easy to do that I can't believe that anyone would not vote. But, from what I know of my blog readers, I am probably preaching to the choir.

Once David let loose with one of his frequent heartfelt and poignantly correct sermons during rehearsal. One of the basses raised his hand. "Yes, Stan," David said. "David," said Stan. "You are preaching to the choir."

I worked on my picture project all morning, which brought into focus thoughts about yet another odd period of my life. This one involving country Western music. (Which I've never really cared for). And lots of cats.

When I got out of college, I moved in with Mom and Dad. I had, after all, thrown their good money away by double majoring in drama and religion, which rendered me totally unemployable.

Dad was at Asbury UMC in Harrisonburg, VA. My brother was a senior at Randolph Macon in Ashland, VA. My sister still lived at home and attended Harrisonburg High School as a Junior/Senior.

I. being unemployable, spent my time sending out blind resumes to companies that probably weren't hiring and, if they were, probably wouldn't hire a person who was so unwise as to get a double drama/religion major. I also worked at Roses. I started as a cashier and eventually got promoted to something that didn't pay more and was a job the manager just kind of made up because he didn't really know what to do with me and he knew that, to keep me, he had to give me something other than cashier.

More tomorrow. It gets better, really! You haven't heard about the country music or cats yet!!

Facebook

In my post Another High school's Friends, I was writing about High School friends who had emailed me from Facebook. I worked one summer in 1975 for the father of one of them, Colleen O'Brien. He was a professor of medicine at UVa . His work all had to do with programming on this big mainframe computer that was so large that it filled an entire room. I guess that was before PCs had even been invented yet. The way I assume I got the job working for him is that I needed a summer job, and Colleen asked Dr. O'Brien if he might could hire me, and he asked if I was smart, and silly Colleen said "sure", and so he hired me. He unfortunately regretted it for the rest of the summer. As probably anyone reading this blog knows, I know a lot of humanities type stuff, but math and technology (or, in other words, anything at which a person can actually make money) baffle me. I spent the summer retyping Dr. O'Brien's address book and making him cups of tea. For some reason, he didn't rehire me the next summer.

Think what a revolution in computers has taken place in the 35 years since. There were 64 years between the 1st manned flight and the moon landing. I'd say this was comparable, wouldn't you? Wonder what the next 30 years will bring?

Song

Sing to the tune of “I've Been Working on the Railroad”


I’ve been working on elections
Twenty-four long years.
Complicated new procedures
Don’t cause excess fears.

Then I hear the Board start going,
“Debbie is embarrassing to me.
We just hate her awful wheelchair,
So we all agree!.

Debbie’s got to go. Debbie’s got to go. Debbie’s got to roll away-ay-ay.
Debbie’s got to go. Debbie’s got to go. Debbie’s got to roll away.

Let’s say she retired!
That could work, you know-ow-ow-ow.
Let’s say that Debbie has retired!
‘Cause she is embarrassing, you know.

Singin' fi, fie, fiddly-i-o
Fi, fie, fiddly-i-o-o-o-o
Fi, fie, fiddly-i-o
Debbie’s got to go.

Goodbye job

The Electoral Board of the City of Falls Church fired me (or, actually, forced me into early retirement) immediately after I’d successfully managed the largest and most complicated election in the City’s history. I had served the City as General Registrar for 24 years during which I conducted 54 successful elections. I never experienced any allegations of electoral misconduct, and, despite 2 recounts, have never had a vote total change. Throughout my years of service, the City led the state in voter turnout, which means, not only that the citizens turned out in force, but also that the voter registration books were uncommonly clean and free of dead wood. After all, if lots of the registered voters on the books don’t live in Falls Church anymore or are dead, then they don’t show up to vote, and the turnout % goes down. Clean registration books don’t create a high turnout, but having the highest turnout in the state on a consistent basis certainly does prove clean registration books.

Throughout my years of service, I’ve consistently done a wonderful job. Among the laundry list of reasons the Electoral Board gave for retiring me, the main reason given was that they didn’t like my wheelchair. I have that reason in writing with all three signatures on it. ADA has been law for years now, so I guess this incident proves that appointment is a private rather than an employment issue and that, when making appointments, one doesn’t have to obey laws targeted at ending discrimination. I just expected better from than discrimination on the basis of disability from the City of Falls Church, but I guess I was wrong.