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NEW YEAR CELEBRATION
Published On 11-09-2008 , 8:20 AM
ON Nov. 4, the Cobb family, all six of them - young, old and middle-aged - got to their Altadena polling place at 5:15 a.m.
Dressed for the rain, and also prepared for the almost two-hour wait with their waterproof folding chairs, most of the Cobb family members were wide awake and ready to be the first at that location to mark a ballot for Barack Obama.
The sleepy-eyed youngest family member, who huddled next to Grandma, wasn't old enough to vote, but the kid wasn't too young to miss out on grasping the historical significance of the early morning trek to the church on the corner of Glenrose Avenue and Altadena Drive.
I haven't seen the Cobbs since they beat me to the church by 15 minutes but I've heard their story everywhere I've been in the last few days.
I've also heard their story by telephone from folks across the country - in Harlem, Atlanta, Colorado Springs, Chandler, Ariz. and a few other places where folks couldn't hold in their joy and spent hours on the wire spreading the stories from their polling places.
Back in Altadena, once my underage Brandi finished looking over my shoulder and turning the pages as I marked the choices in our voting booth, I drove her to Pasadena High School and let her know I'd be at the curb to pick her up that afternoon.
She had been an unpleasant companion that morning and I let her know the day was being called "History." The day was being called "Obama Day," and if she couldn't have another attitude in the afternoon when I saw her, she'd be left at curb to catch the bus back home. She got my point!
While getting up when it was still dark and making our way to the polling place definitely had a taste of making history, it didn't all come together until the celebration at the Kyoto Grand Hotel and Gardens in Little Tokyo where at 8 p.m. emotions exploded when the electoral count confirmed history had truly been made.
American citizens had just elected Barack Obama the 44th president of the United States.
The crowd went wild. Brandi, pumped up with history, joined the hundreds of revelers. The shouting, waving arms and chanting lasted for what seemed like hours.
"Obama, Obama, Obama," was the first 15 minutes. I think it changed to "Oh, My God." Then there was the "Yes, we did" chorus that could be heard blending in ever so often.
Brandi, like so many of us, turned a page in her life on Tuesday. The day after history was made, she didn't have to go to school because it was our New Year celebration.
Attitude? Gone!
Brandi says she can't figure things out. Neither can I or most of the people I talk with who can't stop crying. It's like a burden has been lifted that we never really knew we were carrying.
To have even thought there would a black president of the United States taking his young children and wife to live in the White House would have brought my mother to smile and remark as she often did: "You young people don't really understand."
On Wednesday, my sister said, "I watched Obama's acceptance speech and kept thinking this is fabulous, this is a fabulous movie on the screen and I don't want it to end."
It's real! And as the saying going around by e-mail says: Rosa Parks sat so Martin Luther King could march so Obama could run.
And run he did.
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Comment
| | 1. | Still crying 11/13/08!!!!
- by Pia Smith, 11-13-2008, 2:31 PM
| | 2. | Dear Shirlee, It's wonderful to be able to write those succinct words about the election. I wish I could do it in a few words but the momemts of the past keep invading my thoughts. I tuned 75 years old last year and I was ruminating with my God and asking him why things had not changed in America. Why is this not the government of the people, for the peopl and by the people? Why was it alwasy being said that the government was something we were not to embrace? Why was the government doing us more harm than good? and then an Obama came along to reinforce the preamble to the Constitution, "We the People of the United States", a leader who could possibly lead us of this morass into a place of unity. Some peopl say that is trite but Grant Park on Nov. 4, 2008 looked like the real government that night. The pictures of a continuing segregation, division of the people faded away. I am so glad I lived long enough to see it happen! "Yes we can" became, "Yes we did"!!!!!!!
- by Gwen Pasley, 11-10-2008, 3:35 PM
| | 3. | Great story, Shirlee. I'm glad that Brandi finally "got it". She has such a future before her because of what Obama did- what WE did.
By the way is that "Cobb family", the family Reggie Cobb and Beverly Cobb belong to? If so, please say hello for me.
As for the future, it couldn't be any more promising. I, too, wish my Mama, and Papa could have been here. But, knowing my "Nana-girl", and her special relationship with God, she got front row seats for the history-making event.
I'm glad Barack appreciates the shoulders he stood up on. I hope our children understand as well. Thank you so much, My Sister, for all that you do to help in that area. Please keep advising them to remember that we're counting on them to keep The Dream alive...
- by Hank Wilfong, 11-09-2008, 9:35 AM
| | 4. | A great post commemorating a momentous event acknowledged around the world. Now, the work has to be done as we continue as a vigilant electorate ensuring our collective adherence to the core values of a Obama Presidency. YES WE DID!!!
- by Beverlee Bruce, 11-09-2008, 8:32 AM
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