Sharing a moment with those who matter most

We pause from sports today for a brief commercial break. Tomorrow we return to our regularly scheduled sports programming … 

A couple things happened Tuesday, election day. I start with the premise that it's a good thing for our nation that an African-American could be elected president. That a black man could be in that position 50-some years or so after lunch counter sit-ins and fire hoses and repulsive things like that. That's a good thing, regardless of whether we agree with Barack Obama's politics or disagree with them.

So to commemorate the moment it seemed like a good idea to take my daughters with me when I voted. That way they could garner interest in the process, and could appreciate the significance. I had planned to let them see the ballot, perhaps punch an ‘X' for me … stuff like that. However, at our polling place, my daughters were informed they could not go to the machine with me. They had to stand "behind the line." I pleaded, and even though the workers were kind and said they thought it was great I brought them, the girls had to stand "behind the line."

How ironic that they had to be behind a line in an election partly about eliminating lines.

Apparently where I live somebody somewhere with too little to do is worried that our kids will "influence" my vote once I was standing at the booth. I should have explained that my kids had already influenced my vote, that any vote I cast was for their benefit, but it didn't seem to matter. They waited "behind the line."

As the day went on, my daughters asked to stay up and watch results, and given the historic significance I let them. During the night, when race was mentioned, they kept saying: "But that's not the issue!" No it wasn't, I proudly told them, but events of the past still meant it mattered for this election. And when Obama was declared the winner, they grew as silent as I did as they watched the reactions of every-day people, when they saw the tears and joy and near disbelief on the faces. I was proud to share with them a moment that will go down in history, a moment that was special for its breakthrough but also did not happen solely because of the breakthrough. Obama was elected not because of his race, but because of his beliefs and positions, something Martin Luther King Jr. advocated a long time ago.

I respect all positions in this election, and I explained that to my daughters, who I hope will always share that respect. But in my opinion that moment transcended personal politics. It was historic, something that will be written about in every history book in every nation on the globe.

Then, this morning I remembered 9-11. The girls were in kindergarten then, and given their age, the subject did not come up at school (appropriately so, in my opinion). When they got home they knew nothing of it. The memory of watching them run and skip down the street on that crystal clear day, oblivious to the evil we had seen that morning, will always be burned in my feeble brain.

They missed the chance to go to the voting booth, yes. And a few years earlier they did not comprehend another event that will be part of history. But Tuesday night they were able to experience something extraordinarily good, something potentially positive in ways we cannot understand. They got to see the joy on the faces, the celebration on the streets and in the parks, the day and night when our country stepped past the line and stepped forward to a new time. Things are not perfect, no, and reasonable people may disagree with how things are run the next several years. But the step taken was a positive one, and we all share the hope that it will prove to be more and more positive as time goes on.

My daughters were there for a moment far bigger than those they missed.

And I got to share it with them.

How lucky can one guy be?