After waiting in line at the courthouse to vote my mind drifted back to a simpler place and time.

The first presidential election I was able to vote was in 1972 when Nixon was running for reelection against McGovern.

The war in Vietnam was going full force and was front and center on the news every night. At the time it was referred to as the living room war because it was the first war to have been covered extensively on television. The powers that be called it the Vietnam Conflict, but trust me, it was a war.

Politics aside, it was terrible to watch the news and hear the body count being announced every night. And every night it was climbing.

I remember seeing one of Nixon’s ads on TV and watched as he looked directly into the camera and said, “If you reelect me I’ll get us out of Vietnam.”

That pretty much sealed the deal for me. I knew that as small as I was I’d end up being a tunnel rat if they sent me to Southeast Asia.

On Election Day I drove up the road to the one room schoolhouse my grandmother had taught class back in 1912. My father and uncle had also gone to school there until it was closed in the 1930s.

A few cars and pickups were parked on the gravel parking lot out front. Milling around on the front porch were some old men chewing, spitting and smoking. They all eyed me to determine if I was old enough to enter the building. While they were eyeing me I was eyeing the opening between them hoping to not step in the tobacco juice splattered on the porch floor.

Once I made it through the door I could see things hadn’t changed much since my grandmother had taught school there. The coal stove still sat in the middle of the room. A short stage ran across the front of the room, and benches still lined either side of the center aisle.

Older women dotted the benches here and there around the room. Election Day was not just about voting. It was also about socializing with neighbors that you hadn’t seen in a while. It was about seeing who all turned out to vote and who didn’t. It was a time to gossip, talk about the fall harvest and crop prices.

The neighbors were not the only ones that had turned out that day. Wasps had, too. A lot of wasps.

The potbelly stove had been fired up to take the chill off the room and it had thawed out most of the little boogers that had taken refuge inside the old building.

Dozens of wasps bounced off the ceiling and dusty window panes. That is, what window panes that were left. The ones that were gone had been replaced with cardboard that had been cut to fit into the openings that were missing glass.

I made my way to the front where a couple women sat behind a table that held a voter registry and a stack of ballots. They didn’t have to ask for an ID. Everyone knew everyone else in the community back in those days.

I signed beside my name in the book and took a ballot to a small shelf mounted on one of the walls. A pencil secured by a string was dangling from the shelf, so I took it and began checking boxes beside the candidates I wanted to vote for.

All while dodging nosy wasps and overhearing women swapping recipes. More people were filtering in and their footfalls on the hardwood floor echoed throughout the room. Some old man was hacking up a lung out on the front porch after laughing too hard at something one of his buddies had said.

Another man had reached into the little top pocket of his overalls and was glancing down at his pocket watch. “Excuse me gentlemen. I gotta go feed them hogs of mine.”

I dropped my ballot into the slot of a black box sitting on a card table near the windows before following the hog farmer outside. Tobacco juice didn’t seem to bother him. However, it probably looked like I was playing hopscotch on my way to the parking lot.

That was fifty-two years ago and Nixon won by a landslide. He won every state except Michigan. He got us out of Vietnam and he also got himself out of office. Watergate became a household name as well as a salad my mother made every Thanksgiving thereafter.

All of the people who were in that little one room schoolhouse back then are gone now. Even the building is no longer there. I heard it burned down years ago. Perhaps some of the wasps were smoking in the attic.

Everything is gone now except for me. Me and the memories of a simpler place and time.

A place where time was measured by someone’s hogs’ dinner schedule.After waiting in line at the courthouse to vote my mind drifted back to a simpler place and time.

The first presidential election I was able to vote was in 1972 when Nixon was running for reelection against McGovern.

The war in Vietnam was going full force and was front and center on the news every night. At the time it was referred to as the living room war because it was the first war to have been covered extensively on television. The powers that be called it the Vietnam Conflict, but trust me, it was a war.

Politics aside, it was terrible to watch the news and hear the body count being announced every night. And every night it was climbing.

I remember seeing one of Nixon’s ads on TV and watched as he looked directly into the camera and said, “If you reelect me I’ll get us out of Vietnam.”

That pretty much sealed the deal for me. I knew that as small as I was I’d end up being a tunnel rat if they sent me to Southeast Asia.

On Election Day I drove up the road to the one room schoolhouse my grandmother had taught class back in 1912. My father and uncle had also gone to school there until it was closed in the 1930s.

A few cars and pickups were parked on the gravel parking lot out front. Milling around on the front porch were some old men chewing, spitting and smoking. They all eyed me to determine if I was old enough to enter the building. While they were eyeing me I was eyeing the opening between them hoping to not step in the tobacco juice splattered on the porch floor.

Once I made it through the door I could see things hadn’t changed much since my grandmother had taught school there. The coal stove still sat in the middle of the room. A short stage ran across the front of the room, and benches still lined either side of the center aisle.

Older women dotted the benches here and there around the room. Election Day was not just about voting. It was also about socializing with neighbors that you hadn’t seen in a while. It was about seeing who all turned out to vote and who didn’t. It was a time to gossip, talk about the fall harvest and crop prices.

The neighbors were not the only ones that had turned out that day. Wasps had, too. A lot of wasps.

The potbelly stove had been fired up to take the chill off the room and it had thawed out most of the little boogers that had taken refuge inside the old building.

Dozens of wasps bounced off the ceiling and dusty window panes. That is, what window panes that were left. The ones that were gone had been replaced with cardboard that had been cut to fit into the openings that were missing glass.

I made my way to the front where a couple women sat behind a table that held a voter registry and a stack of ballots. They didn’t have to ask for an ID. Everyone knew everyone else in the community back in those days.

I signed beside my name in the book and took a ballot to a small shelf mounted on one of the walls. A pencil secured by a string was dangling from the shelf, so I took it and began checking boxes beside the candidates I wanted to vote for.

All while dodging nosy wasps and overhearing women swapping recipes. More people were filtering in and their footfalls on the hardwood floor echoed throughout the room. Some old man was hacking up a lung out on the front porch after laughing too hard at something one of his buddies had said.

Another man had reached into the little top pocket of his overalls and was glancing down at his pocket watch. “Excuse me gentlemen. I gotta go feed them hogs of mine.”

I dropped my ballot into the slot of a black box sitting on a card table near the windows before following the hog farmer outside. Tobacco juice didn’t seem to bother him. However, it probably looked like I was playing hopscotch on my way to the parking lot.

That was fifty-two years ago and Nixon won by a landslide. He won every state except Michigan. He got us out of Vietnam and he also got himself out of office. Watergate became a household name as well as a salad my mother made every Thanksgiving thereafter.

All of the people who were in that little one room schoolhouse back then are gone now. Even the building is no longer there. I heard it burned down years ago. Perhaps some of the wasps were smoking in the attic.

Everything is gone now except for me. Me and the memories of a simpler place and time.

A place where time was measured by someone’s hogs’ dinner schedule.