I know the November thing I was thinking of.
So here we are in November at last, and I seem to recall something important should be about to happen, and it can’t be just that Thanksgiving is not happening this year, unless you call a turkey sandwich in a socially distanced Claremont parking lot — our family’s plan to get together with my 92-year-old father — Thanksgiving. Do they allow zinfandel in parking lots? We’ll find out. No, clearly it’s that First Tuesday thing, and I sort of didn’t want to remind you, just in case you were planning on voting wrong. If you’re voting correctly, and still haven’t done it, in spite of all the reminders and the crazy variety of options, by all means hie thee to a polling place on Tuesday, whether to put on rubber gloves and brave the machines, or simply to drop off your completed ballot that came in the mail. That’s what I finally did last week, while my wife went in and voted the old-fashioned way. As she did so I roamed the parking lot, took a photograph that the security guard told me I shouldn’t have — he didn’t confiscate it — and marveled at the cars of my fellow Americans. One was a Maybach, with a chauffeur helping an elderly couple get inside; another was a massive black SUV limo with the vanity plate “Augusta” and the Del Monte Forest plaque on the grill, sported by those with homes near Pebble Beach.
