INFORMATIONAL: for some goddamned wordpress reason, the link below is not working. This means that you get to read my highly emotional post about Tobias Wolff spurring the young voters on to a better world without getting to hear it, at least until I get home and can doctor it up. But use your imaginations. Your imaginations will tell you teh truth.
It’s time for a super special treat here at fruitofthesea.com. I have been saving it for five years and no lie, as you will discover. I don’t know why I’ve been saving it, except that a thing becomes more special the more you save it. As in, wine, marriages, babies, and all the things that really matter.
So the deal is that during the 2004 election, McSweeney’s attempted to raise young voter turn out in “swing states” (hello, PA) by asking major writers to remind youngsters to vote. One could sign up for the reminder phone call via some web interface, and I signed up even though I had voted absentee in my home county long before November 4. I wanted to talk to a famous writer about the election, even just for a minute. And, bless my heart, I thought Kerry was going to win and we might put an end to the disgraceful bullshit. So I signed up. When I heard that Tobias Wolff was slated to make the calls for the Pittsburgh region, I was even more excited because the end of his story “Bullet in the Brain” makes me cry, practically on command.
But as election day drew closer, I realized that I would likely receive my Tobias Wolff phone call during my fiction workshop. So, for that one day, I changed my voicemail message to something along the lines of, “Hi, this is Sarah Smith, I can’t answer the phone right now because I’m probably in class, but in case this is Tobias Wolff calling, I wanted you to know that I already voted absentee and that your story ‘Bullet in the Brain’ makes me cry every time I read it, and thank you so much for reaching out to young voters like me.”
This is the message he left me: [audio http://wpcom.files.wordpress.com/2007/01/my-song.mp3]
Ever since then, every 40 days my phone asks me to save or delete the message, and obviously I’ve saved it. I love how hopeful he sounds. I love how it’s him, that guy who writes stories that I love, responding to me personally. I love it even more now that Bush Jr. is out of office. And not to pat myself on the back too much, but I also love the fact that I’ve saved this brief message through four more years of nonsense and through 100-plus days of what we maybe optimistically call “change.” Whether we’ll eventually consider Obama’s administration one of real change, I think this brief audio clip documents what it felt like before, and I know I’m getting really corny by now, but I consider this voice mail one of my prized possessions. I’m glad I’ve saved it this long, and I’ll keep on saving it, just as a reminder.
I remember the day when Kerry conceded the election. I read about it in the basement of Hunt Library on the CMU campus, where I had a work-study job as an assistant video librarian. My Personal Essay class met right after my shift ended. A lot of us were a little emotional or teary-eyed about the news because it meant true and indelible defeat. Then Hilary, our professor, told us about his days as a Robert Kennedy staffer, in particular, the day when RFK was assassinated. Hilary cried, and we all cried some more, and class ended early. It seemed completely hopeless.
The 2008 election felt completely different to me. I will only confess to my mother that I have these premonitions about things, but I really had a premonition about Obama winning the election. Otherwise, I don’t think I would have driven my friend to the beer distributor for a keg earlier in the day. No matter. It happened. For the first time maybe in my rational adult life, I’m willing to completely identify as an American. Granted, there are still problems. But thank goodness we are where we are right now.
