Our Man in Arlington

I am writing this column on Tuesday, November 2, 2004: Election Day for those who may have already forgotten by the time they see this column on Thursday.

I almost did not write my column this week. I am almost incapable of thinking about anything else on Election Day, and a Tuesday column about election would be so anti-climatic by Thursday that it didn’t seem to be worth the trouble.

But what the heck? I need something to do between my Election Day jobs and the all-nighter I plan to spend watching the returns. Election Days have been an important part of my life for almost as long as I can remember. Soon after we moved to Louisiana in 1947, I remember well the gubernatorial election in November where “Uncle” Earl K. Long was elected to his first full term as governor. It was a strange day. The day before, you could find no one who supported Earl, nor could you find a Long voter the day after the election (at least in Baton Rouge). Earl won handily anyway. Thus it was with all of his elections. People wanted him in, but were sort of embarrassed to admit it.

A major part of my education came in the 1952 presidential race. On Election Day, I went to our precinct’s polling place at the Westdale Country Club. People were checking in with a man wearing a Stevenson button. When they exited, they were double-checked and given a small slip of paper.

I asked the man, a friend of my father’s, what he was doing. The chits he was giving out, he explained, entitled a supporter to a half pint of the liquor of his choice at Pat Dugas’s combination gas station and liquor store (the Dugas’ were our next door neighbors)– just for voting! I thought that was a real cool idea! It really paid to be a good citizen.

Years later in my brief political management career in Louisiana politics, the liquor had given way to five-dollar bills. I carried a big wad of them at all times. Poor people knew they could ask for “walking around money” (in rural areas it was “gasoline money”) to defray the cost of getting them and their families to the polls. Another lesson in encouraging one to fulfill their civic duty.

In 1968, I began what has been an unbroken string of working the polls in Arlington. Here, it is largely a social occasion. Virtually everyone has made up their mind, and what poll workers are really doing is showing the flag and having a good time chatting with their neighbors regardless of how they are going to vote. Liquor chits and five-dollar bills have given way to sample ballots and campaign literature for those who have nothing to read while they wait in line.

Then, when the polls close, we all adjourn to a watering spot to agonize over the election returns. This year, the Democrats will be celebrating at the Arlington Cinema and Draft House on Columbia Pike. For many, many years, Arlington Democrats held their annual election eve vigil and pizza and beer fest in the Our Lady Queen of Peace Parish Hall in South Arlington. A few years ago, however, the new bishop unceremoniously threw us out just a couple of days before the election. We have been strictly secular ever since.

I am now off to vote, work the polls, and adjourn to our election night vigil. I’ll let you know what happened next week; if we know, that is.