2020 Life Logs, Day 298: I Will Vote
Date: Sunday, October 25, 2020
Weather: Mostly Cloudy and Cool; High 54, Low 45 Degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, Falmouth, MA
This morning I got a text from Cher inviting me to tune into a two-hour music program tonight to support Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. I deleted the text thinking I was not going to spend two hours watching a music program. Then I talked to Justin this afternoon and he asked me if I was going to watch that program tonight, I WILL VOTE. That gave me second thoughts, so I did sign up to watch. And I am very glad that I did. As my niece Lynn always said about me, “Judy, you have less pop culture knowledge than anyone I know.” And she was right. I had never heard of most the music artists featured in tonight’s program, but it was a feel good two hours supporting the Biden campaign and I really enjoyed being introduced to so many young artists. There were also a few oldies that I recognized, but all were trying to get the point across that every single eligible American needs to vote in this election. George Lopez and Ana Navarro hosted the event, and I am ashamed to admit that I had never heard of either of them. I did recognize John Legend and loved his rendition of “We Shall Overcome.” There were young artists like Ciarro and P!nk that I had never heard of but I enjoyed being introduced to them. There was a young singer songwriter from Texas who now lives in Nashville, Maren Morris, who gave a very persuasive talk about the importance of voting for Biden in this election. There were young artists like Darren Criss singing oldies like the Beetles’ “Here Comes the Sun.” And then there were oldies like Cher singing a new song written just for this campaign . . . “Happiness Is Just A Thing Called Joe.” There was a song called “Where is the Love?” that used the words and video from a Joe Biden speech which was quite effective. This was all done in a Zoom-type format with appearances by Joe and Jill Biden, Kamala Harris and her husband Doug Emhoff. I think a young artist who quoted Cornell West summed it up best when he said to never forget that . . . “Justice is what love looks like in public.” I think it is obvious which candidate he was referencing.
Last night my sister was finally reconnected to her life-long friend Helen. A number of us have been working to make this happen, but a Facebook message that I sent to the church that we knew Helen was a member of resulted in an instant connection. One of Helen’s granddaughters saw my message and got back to me via Facebook. We aarranged for the phone call to get the two reunited. They talked on the phone last night and that was a happy event. On the other side of the coin, we learned a not so happy bit of news late yesterday. Actually, I didn’t hear this news until early this afternoon. Heather got an email late yesterday saying that the assistant coach of Jonah’s soccer team has Covid. Jonah was last exposed to him last Wednesday evening at a practice. Everyone wears masks at practice and they use the six-foot social distancing rule, so this is technically classified as a minimal exposure. Still it brings up all kinds of questions. This is a week that Jonah goes to school. Should he go knowing he has been exposed? Heather contacted the school system and their only reply was this was a minimal exposure and would not keep him from coming to school. You need to wait at least five days after an exposure to be tested, so Jonah will get tested tomorrow evening. But he won’t get the results until at least Wednesday. It would be so helpful if there was a test with immediate results available. In the meantime, I am keeping a distance. I will still pick up Ollie after school, but we will keep our masks on in the car and keep the windows open. Hopefully by mid-week we will have negative test results for Jonah, but we will still need to take extra precautions for another week . . . life in the days in Covid.
