Voting and Griping

My Mother is the voice in my head, some days more than others. Her voice is especially loud when I see kids not holding their parents hands in a parking lot, when my cell rings three times in a row and on election day.  My Mother is a former poll worker.  She was a stay at home mom until I was 16 and worked the polls in Crutchfield with due diligence.  I loved it because we got to eat spray cheese with real ritz crackers and other goodies the friendly lady poll workers would bring. We would also get a day out of school and play till we dropped. The most important thing was we saw people voting.  Mom talked to us about voting.  The most memorable thing she repeated quite often was "If you don't vote, you can't gripe."  All of this poll working and voting talk really affected me as a young person because I could not wait until I turned 18.  I wanted to vote.  I have been voting every since.  Now, I take my boys with me when I vote so they can have the experience of seeing how things work and saying thank you to the friendly poll workers.  They get their "I voted" sticker to wear proudly on their shirt and hopefully a sense of duty.  A duty to vote.