Honoring Yeadon's WW II Moms

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"I'll need to come by tomorrow to file an absentee ballot so my vote will count in the November 6, 2000 presidential election."
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On November 2, 1949 Americans all across the country were casting their votes in the first presidential election in the United States since the end of World War II. Given I was only a little munchkin, that day should've turned out to be just another forgettable day of my childhood.  

Funny how another forgettable day of your childhood becomes a day you've never forgotten.
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When my mom went to vote in the small town of Yeadon, Pennsylvania on Election Day 1949, she didn't go alone. She took me with her. Mom and I walked hand in hand up Church Lane to the voting place—Borough Hall, I think.

This wasn't about my mom seeking to indoctrinate me into a political party so I would know who to cast my vote for when I came of age. Actually, I had no idea who my mom cast her vote for that day, and for the rest of my mom's life she never once asked me who I voted for in any election.

No, my mom had a much greater purpose in mind when she took me with her on Election Day in 1949. She wanted me to bear witness to the gift of living in a democracy; the gift of being able to cast your vote freely without coercion or fear; the gift of living in the United States of America only years after Pearl Harbor and World War II and all the lives lost so that we'd remain the land of the free. 

Which is why November 2, 1949 was the fulfillment of my mom's responsibility as a parent to pass down those gifts to her child. But my mom wasn't alone. Not even close.

That voting hall was filled to capacity with mothers and children, in all of Yeadon's various shades of colors, participating and witnessing the underlying foundation of our democracy—the freedom to vote.  
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It's my mom's birthday today and I'm looking at a few notes she jotted down during September of the year 2000. One of those notes has a little star beside it, so as to emphasize its importance. Here's that note, exactly as my mom wrote it down.

"Called 215-686-1505 to ask about getting an absentee ballot. I'll need to come by tomorrow to file an absentee ballot so my vote will count in the November 6, 2000 presidential election."

My mom must have had a premonition her death was imminent and maybe filling out an absentee ballot would ease her mind should she not have the strength to vote in person.  Indeed, filling out that absentee ballot was my mom's last official act. She died two months after the election at the age of 82.

Reading my mom's note made me want to cry, except I stopped crying long ago. I guess I ran out of tears.  Who knows, maybe someday my tears will flow again.  Someday.

But today, as I pictured all the mothers in Yeadon waiting to vote with their children, it hit me out of the blue that everyone of those mothers shared a special—actually, an historic—bond. I wonder if any of you can guess what that historic bond was. Feel free to take a moment to guess.
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All the Yeadon moms gathered to vote in 1949 were the first generation of women in the United States of America to be born with the right to vote, given that their mothers gave birth to them around the time the 19th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified in 1920. Maybe you'd like to take a moment to let that sink in.

And now, maybe you'll wonder who in 2026 would have rejected that 19th Amendment if they'd been around back in 1920; or who in 2026 would have opposed all the freedoms written into the first Ten Amendments to our Constitution back in 1789.  

But there's no need to wonder about this....

Any man who would have sunk to the level of trying to subvert our democracy and sew doubts about our elections—if such a man had existed in 1949—he'd better not come face to face with the World War II mothers in Yeadon. Because they'd dress him down from the top of his head to the bottom of his feet and they wouldn't mince words. They'd call him a traitor.  

Yes, those moms are all gone now. But we honor their lives by refusing to turn our backs on what's happening in the country they left behind...in the country they loved.
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Puffed up males proudly stand beside a person who, without shame, defends the murders of protesters. American protesters.

Stylishly dressed females fawn over a person who's an assaulter of women and a long time best friend of a child rapist.

Young soldiers pledge their obedience to a person who once called their dead World War II fathers and grandfathers losers and suckers.

What could be worse than all of that?  This....

The person who claims that elections are rigged and that only he can be the victor now lays flowers on the graves of the men who sacrificed their lives so that the sacred freedom to vote would endure for all their countrymen.

And then that person goes and builds lavish monuments to himself adorned with his face and name so whenever Americans, especially young Americans, think of a president they'll think of the only president in American history to be diabolical enough to destroy our democracy and our freedom to vote, because if you destroy one you'll destroy the other. 

So when the next mother and her little child walk up Church Lane to vote, Borough Hall will be closed because the winner of the presidential election had already been decided and declared.  

To hell with the 19th Amendment.  To hell with the Constitution.  But no worries.

His personal police force will keep you safe from immigrants and other undesirables, including journalists who call his masked police force exactly what it is—the gestapo with masks.  But again, don't worry.  Those journalists will be dealt with accordingly until they step in line and get with the program.

And finally, with the tv cameras rolling, he'll once again pose for pictures and lay flowers at the graves of the losers and suckers who gave their lives so that the gift of America would never fall into the evil hands of a self loving dictator.
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Yes, it's my mom's birthday and I feel like crying when I think of her and all of Yeadon's World War II moms, except I ran out of tears a long time ago.

But I can still clench my fist in rage for a being who from the top of his head to the bottom of his feet is a vulgar, immoral, bone spur draft dodging American traitor; a being who couldn't care less about the 19th Amendment or the First Ten Amendments or one word of the Constitution our Founding Fathers pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor to write.

And, maybe someday, his vile monuments will be covered in graffiti and he and his pandering cult will be assigned to the garbage heap of history where they'll live forever in infamy.

Someday.





 










 
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