A Sacred Duty

I climbed the sweeping broad steps, passed between the towering columns of the grand old building, walked through a pair of heavy oaken doors, and entered the hushed antechamber. The familiar place, the auditorium of San Fernando Junior High (nee San Fernando High School), had been transformed into a secular temple for the day. People spoke in whispers. American flags draped the walls.

 

 

On November 7, 1972, I voted for the very first time. I was a member of the first class of eighteen-year-olds voting for US President after the passage and ratification of the Twenty-Sixth Amendment to the US Constitution in July 1971. The Vietnam War was in full tilt. President Richard Nixon was running for a second term against Senator George McGovern. The buzz around the election was deafening.

 

The auspiciousness of the occasion was a bit intimidating. The pride I felt in being a “real adult” with the rights and responsibilities of a full citizen pushed me forward. My shoes clicked on the tile floor as I queued up behind the handful of my fellow citizens waiting to vote.

 

I scanned the long and narrow, high-ceiling foyer. At both ends were arrayed several voting booths. Sturdy and tall, built of dark wood, and the size of a phone booth, each was draped with a privacy curtain of vertically striped canvas. Some stood vacant, the curtain drawn back and inviting. Other curtains, pulled closed, revealed only the voters’ knees, ankles, and shoes, while protecting the voters' privacy of choice from the public eye.

 

“Name?” asked the first gray-haired woman sitting at the check-in table.

“Joan Griffin”

“Address?”

“556 North Brand Boulevard, San Fernando.”

She found my entry in the long list of names and checked me off.

“Put your signature here.” A younger woman, as conservatively dressed as the older women who bookended her, pointed at the line next to my printed name in her own book of lists. “Be sure to sign your full name.”

I took the pen and with great care wrote my first, middle, and last names in my best script, then pushed the book back. The woman scrutinized my entry before passing me on to the third clerk.

“Here’s your ballot.” The immaculately dressed and coifed woman held out a long, sheathed card. Then, noting my youth, she stood up, unfolding all five-feet of herself, and added in a grandmotherly voice, “Have you done this before, dear?”

“No, ma’am. This is my first time voting.” I spoke in the steady confident voice of my new personae—liberated female college freshman—but I’m sure she caught the ample dose of nervousness mixed with my bubbling pride.

She pointed me to an open voting booth to my left and reminded me to use the special pen waiting inside to put an X in the boxes beside my choices.

“Thank you.” I turned and approached the booth, feeling empowered and anxious.

 

I removed my marked-up sample ballot from the large macrame purse hanging on my shoulder, stepped into my booth, pulled the curtain tight behind me, and took a deep breath. Pressing my papers flat on the small shelf, I pick up the pen and was surprised to find my hand shaking. Another deep breath. I marked my ballot slowly and with great care. I took great pleasure in voting against Nixon and The War, voting for McGovern and The Peace Movement. 

Filled with pride and a deep sense of patriotism, I swept back my curtain, dropped my ballot in the box, and strode through that sacred space and outside into the bright light of that brisk and breezy autumn afternoon.