It’s a gorgeous day here–translucent blue skies, temp in the 70s, autumn leaves doing pirouettes across the lawn. Every tranquil fall morning like this reminds me of the morning of Sept. 11.

My husband and I packed the kids in the double stroller and walked to the nearby elementary school to vote. We sang The Premable from Schoolhouse Rock for our daughter, who said she would “write in Daddy or my friend Hadley” if she were allowed to vote.

Every parking space was occupied and the line of voters extended from the gymnasium out into the lobby. I came prepared to show my driver’s license and other proof of residence, but no one asked me to show anything. In fact, when a voter next to me voluntarily offered his ID, a poll worker seemed offended.

“You can put that away,” he told the conscientious citizen. “We don’t ask to see ID.”

Sigh.

The best part of voting, from the kids’ perspective, is, of course, the stickers. At our polling place, however, all the stickers were politically correct:

“I voted,” it says on top.

“Yo vot�,” it says on the bottom.

I thought of asking the polling judge whether they had any “I voted” stickers in English only. But I didn’t want to be accused of, you know, harassment…

***

In case you were wondering about my vote, here’s a hint: