I spent Election Night at the home of a parishioner -- ironically, the same parishioner at whose home I watched the election returns 16 years ago -- surrounded by a group of folks from the church. A HUGE widescreen TV had been set up, covering up half the room, and a bountiful spread of refreshments and adult and child-friendly beverages had been laid out.
We channel-surfed among NBC, CBS, ABC, MSNBC, and CNN (for some reason, skipping past the Fox Channel!), comparing and contrasting the differing points of view, coverage perspective and commentary. Every time a channel went to commercial, someone shouted for the channel to be switched. We were all a little tense, a little anxious, and when 9 o'clock rolled around, we were relieved to ask for the Comedy Channel. We laughed and laughed at the antics of Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart, gleefully spoofing the staid coverage on the "straight" networks. We were really enjoying the routines, and then, about an hour after we had switched, the two co-hosts solemnly called the election for Obama.
"Change the channel! Change the channel! Go to a 'real' channel!" screamed several folks in a near-panic as the poor host scrambled for the remote. Reaching NBC, we were all amazed to see that the network, using polling data combined with actual returns, had declared Obama the next president. (We learned later that the Comedy Channel had gotten the information that the networks had called it, and had fed it immediately to their co-hosts so they could make their announcement.)
Oh my God what a moment -- what a delicious, emotional, spiritual moment! We screamed and hollered, we laughed and cried, we jumped up and down, we hugged each other. And then the moment got even better, as more and more electoral votes were added to Obama's column. We could hardly believe our eyes. Our emotions swung from incredulity to exhaltation, from joy to stunned amazement, from near-hysterical laughter to tears and sobs. Nearly everyone in the room whipped out their cell phones and called faraway loved ones -- adult children, spouses, siblings, friends -- needing to expand the circle of happiness and excitement.
More and more votes resulted in more and more screams and shouts and exclamations, and more happy tears. By the time of McCain's concession speech (a good speech, which he should have given earlier in the campaign, and it was sad to hear so many of his riled-up supporters booing even the mention of the new president's name, a natural result of the ugly campaign they had run), and Obama's great speech later, at midnight, we were all pretty well wrung out, drained and yet still strangely exhilarated.
As I drove home at about 1 am, I had a mad desire to blow my horn, or even to run up to the doors of people I didn't know and ring their doorbells, just to blow off steam and share with the world my sense of excitement. I didn't, of course, but still, it was hard to wind down. I went to bed about 2 am, exhausted but still feeling the tingle that something wonderful had happened.
I woke the next morning with a sore throat (!) and a strange intuitive sense that everything, everything, had changed in some fundamental way -- as if I could go to the window and see a brand-new sky, as though the sky was going to be a gorgeous shade of green from now on. Later that day, all over New Orleans, white and black folks were just glowing with the newness, the joy of it all. A musician friend of mine said to me at a celebration in the Marigny last night, "I feel like a new man, I really do. I feel like I could do anything."
So here's to wonderful new beginnings, dawning new days, the ability to do anything, and of course to beautiful green skies.
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