captainsblog | À la recherche du temps perdu...

...and hopes of (hopefully quick) things future.

As I write, just around noon on the Friday three days after the election, the nation still hangs in the balance. Nothing is really official until next month anyway when the Electors do their Collegiate job, but even Fox is calling Arizona and Michigan for Biden, despite the conflicting chants by Cheeto supporters of Stop the Count! (in Michigan, where he was ahead) and Count the Vote! (in Arizona, where he was behind). At least they're consistent in their inconsistency.

Nevada alone would be enough to secure Joe his 270, and PA and even GA remain in play, either of which would leave room to spare if others turn the wrong way. But as of the moment, all we can do is hope....

and think back.

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My first recollections are political. I spent most of Wednesday in a perpetual state of head-scratching as to how an incumbent so hated, so incompetent, so unable to rise as a leader at a time of crisis, could have come this nail-bitingly close to a four-year extension of his contract, with even more votes than he got the last time. In fairness, Biden, by all accounts, got way more nationwide than Cheeto did- indeed, more than any presidential candidate has ever received. But my thoughts turned back to the closest parallel I could remember:

Far as I know or can remember, Jimmy Carter was the only president- past, present or future- I was ever in the same room with. It was a big room, to be sure: the Nassau Coliseum, for a campaign rally in 1976. I can find no trace of this appearance online- I did find references to Gerald Ford also making a stop there right before his loss that November- but I remember a loud and appreciative crowd for Carter, hoping for the final step to end the Long National Nightmare that was Nixon until barely two years before.

Carter was narrowly elected that November- though not nearly as narrowly as more recent elections have been-but despite major foreign policy progress and an undeniable goodness about him, he was brought down by a series of crises (first energy, then hostage) both emanating from the same Middle Eastern theater which brought his biggest accomplishment.

My first night at the Cornell Daily Sun was in the fall of 1978, when his brokering of the landmark Israel-Egyptian peace accord was announced. Two years later, the voters blamed him for all that had gone wrong in the years since that triumph, particularly with the Iranian hostage takers (who, we now know, Carter's opponent stealthily and evilly manipulated to deny him credit for an "October surprise").

New York was a foregone conclusion for Carter that year, so I cast my first and last third-party presidential vote for John Anderson. I worked the newsroom that Election Night, hoping that those good intentions would prevail over a dottering old actor. The next morning's editorial page, in mourner's black, confirmed the result:

Jimmy left gracefully, and went on to forty years of adoration by his fans and opprobrium from Republicans, building legacies both literally and figuratively. There's a certain irony in this year's election turning into the very kind of clusterfuck that the Carter Center sends observers to banana republics to monitor.

♫Mister, we could use a man like Jimmy Carter again....♫

So this year, marking my eleventh presidential vote, the nation was asked to pass on a man with no major foreign policy accomplishments (sorry, but Jared buying peace treaties with minor Saudi puppet states isn't the same) and not a bone of goodness in his glowing orange body. I remain optimistic that the nation will indeed reject him as well, but given how nail-bitingly close it is despite all his faults, all his pablum, all his false bravado- I still grieve for us as a nation.

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I've been trying not to go all 24-hour political junkie on this stuff. It's turned out to be the right approach, since it seems every time I check, nothing's changed from the last time I checked. One distraction I got this morning took me even further back in time and to a place far far away that was once home:

Scott Eckers is a longtime Long Islander and chronicler of how the landscape literally changed in the years leading up to our generation growing up there. The photo above is from one of his articles in a newspaper there which zoom in from county to town to unincorporated area to specific subdivisions- including the "East Hempstead Park" development you see above.

I had never heard that term for the street I grew up on or the surrounding ones- nor did I ever have a clue who, or what, Powers Avenue was named for.

Now I do:

The largest early development on the west side of Newbridge Avenue was East Hempstead Park by Powers East Hempstead, Inc. As the name suggests, this was the large farm of John Powers and family (who formerly had properties along Newbridge Road). After it was sold and subdivided in 1928, a numbered street system was established (First through Ninth streets, perpendicular with Powers Avenue). Seemingly due to confusion with the numbered grid developing a few blocks northeast, East Hempstead Park streets adopted new names in 1933.

I DID vaguely remember that last bit- there were maps, probably in phone books in the 70s, which showed First through Ninth Streets as alternate names for Albert through Bernard- which seemed weird, for the other side of the (then) Newbridge Avenue had its own set of numbered streets turning into same-numbered avenues running all the way out to the (still) Newbridge Road.

Scott also talks about nearby subdivisions I did know by name, in this and a subsequent article- Central Homes, Lakeville Estates, and Gerose Estates. The latter is where a friend lived back in elementary school and even then I wondered WTF a "Gerose" was; I now know the name was an amalgam of the Gerlas and Rosenbergs who developed it. There's also some good 50s schmalz in there: adverts for Wenwood homes, site of our junior high, which featured a “finished knotty pine rumpus and recreation room” among the amenities; and a reference to "plans for the homes, complete with period-appropriate descriptions like Honey of a Rambler, When You Settle Down, Ranch House Step-Saver, Overall Comfort, Meet Today's High Standards, With a Homey Effect, and Shipshape and Expandable, could be purchased by developers."

I love thinking back to those old days. Going back to their racism, sexism and homophobia? Not so much.

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One final, if stretched, presidential reference- to the famed Slick Willie of the 90s: when this photo and caption came across the other day,-

And just like that, Grandma was off the list for church fundraisers-

I was instantly reminded of our mother's Celebrated Crochet Period in her later years, where she would come up for a cover for anything in sight. My sister's then boyfriend famously said that if you weren't careful, she'd "knit one for your willie."

Despite his snark, Joe was a good man. So's the Joe we're waiting for right now.