VOTE!

Much like the Dover/New Philadelphia football rivalry or the Massillon/McKinley showdown, the battle between the Tonawanda Warriors and the North Tonawanda Lumberjacks is historic, the longest football rivalry in the state of New York. This is T-NT week, but due to COVID-19, the high school football season in western New York is postponed until March 2021, so there’s no explosive action on the gridiron on either side of the Erie Canal. 

 

Memories of frozen fingers and scalding hot chocolate are vivid, as is the game I missed in seventh grade because my secretive plan to meet a boyfriend was foiled. Many October nights in the early 70s were spent with a box of Kleenex in my lap, folding, stapling and fluffing hundreds of pastel-tinted flowers in preparation for the T-NT car parade, one of the annual events leading up to the football game. Pink, yellow, green, blue and white flowers adorned every convertible in town, as the parade wound its way from the high school to the football field – or was it the other way around? Too many cobwebs in my memory to capture that detail.

 

I’ve thought about that car parade as I’ve seen images of political parades in these weeks leading up to the presidential election. I haven’t seen any tissue flowers, but flags, patriotic bunting, crepe paper streamers and lots of cheers have accompanied “parades” across our country this fall. Car parades have formed weekly, some in support of the incumbent while others are “ridin’ with Biden.” Motorcycles have been on the move as well, showing their political colors. On gorgeous fall afternoons, Trumptilla boat parades have generally gone off without a hitch, although a Texas event ended up with at least four sunken vessels. Sheriff spokesperson Kristen Dark noted, “We had an exceptional number of boats on the lake today. When they all started moving at the same time, it generated significant waves.” Oops. 

 

Long a fan of Amtrak, Vice President Biden and his wife Jill traveled through Ohio and Western Pennsylvania by train recently, reminiscent of the whistle stop tours of many nineteenth century candidates. But my favorite so far is the parade of 300+ decorated golfcarts at The Villages in Florida, the world’s largest retirement community, as residents formed a procession to deliver their early-voting ballots. 

 

What’s next, a Plain Parade? Well, apparently the Bikers for Trump beat me to that idea, with a September event in Fredericksburg, Ohio featuring Amish buggies, a charter bus, some single riders on horseback who looked like Civil War re-enactors, and a red convertible, all available to view on YouTube. There were even a couple of folks riding bareback on oxen. Thanks, but I’ll stick to the convertible.

 

Caravans, flotillas and car parades can give us relief after weeks of sitting at home in our bathrobes, eating bon-bons and making Kleenex flowers (not your story?). But like my high school car parade, pep rally and bonfire, none of the hype really matters. At the end of the week, it’s about the results on the football field. Unfortunately for the Warriors, their school is much smaller than the Lumberjacks, and as of 2018, they had lost eighteen consecutive rivalry games to their arch-nemesis. But in 2019, the “T” in T-NT was finally victorious. Hope springs eternal.

 

In case you haven’t seen the parades, this is election season. Did you know that in 2016, 42% of eligible voters did not cast a ballot in the presidential election? Two out of every five potential voters didn’t vote. Forget the political parades and rallies – what matters most in this long corona-tinged autumn is the willingness of the citizens of the United States of America to vote. 

 

This election is no high school football rivalry. As former President Dwight D. Eisenhower understood, “The future of this republic is in the hands of the American voter.” Make a plan. Vote early at the BOE, request an absentee ballot, or vote at the booth on November 3, 2020. Beyoncé passionately reminds us: “We are not helpless. The fire is still burning . . . Get in formation [golf carts optional] . . . Please go out and vote this November.”