“O” Happy Day — Even in Indiana!
November 5, 2008 by Julia King · Leave a Comment
There are few things sadder than waking up Wednesday morning with the wrong sign in your yard. Do you pull it out of the ground immediately and toss it into the garage to save face? Or do you let the weather beat it into a tattered rag to prove you’ll go down with your principles? After nearly 25 years in Indiana, Lord knows I’ve asked myself those questions more than a time or two.
But today I awoke with the right sign in my yard and “Oh, Happy Day” singing in my head. A bit sleepy from staying up too late, I wasn’t too groggy to dance around in the kitchen and wave my arms up in the air like I was part of a choir. That’s how I feel, like one little voice in a magnificent choir.
Of course, once something has actually arrived, it’s easy to say you saw it coming. So that’s what I’m going to do, claim a little prescience.
The first “sign” was in a window on Main Street. Some months ago, a group of Obama supporters set up a headquarters in a high-ceilinged, freshly renovated space with hardwood floors and cream colored walls. Kids used magic markers and crayons to color in the words “hope” and “change” on pieces of paper that sat cheerily in a display case next to a huge, brightly colored poster of Obama. Over the last several weeks, many people came and went through those headquarter doors, people of all shapes and sizes and ages and shades.
Meanwhile, right next door to the headquarters, a town landmark went out of business. Newell’s dress shop — four generations old and complete with a “Ladies Apparel” sign over its door — ceased to exist. Its inventory gone, McCain/Palin signs clung to its windows and a large American flag stood alone in the center of the otherwise empty store.
The contrast was stark, almost eerily so: the old and the new guard side-by-side in this small, northern Indiana town.
