Witness to History

I've just seen the most amazing sight, but before I tell you about that I need to give you a little background. My home and studio is in an old industrial part of Atlanta that is rapidly changing. New lofts, new coffee shops, new boutiques.....you get the picture. It's happening all over this town. Where I vote though, is a neighborhood that has been forgotten for a very long time and where the word HOPE is probably seldom spoken.

In the seven years I've gone to my polling place to vote, there has never been a line, almost never anyone under 40 and certainly no sense of anticipation. All that changed today. I happily waited in line for an hour mid morning under a perfect blue sky. People laughed, talked and smiled. An astonishing 50% or more of the people in line appeared to be under 30, and that's a conservative guess. It looked more like 70%.

With all the hype around this election it would have been easy to be cynical, especially before today. Standing in that line and looking around all I could think was "It's a great day America."