So, I was driving to the Halloween Carnival last night, listening to NPR (yes, Hubs, don’t laugh, I do listen to NPR at times. Times when I am too lazy to change the radio channel.) And I stayed on the station because the woman was interviewing folks from my hometown of St. Louis about this upcoming election. The interviewees were there for a vocational training program, and all of them were African Americans. They had various reasons for being there– one was a single mom, another just out of prison, another a grandmother who had retired but now needed more income to raise her grandchildren.

At one point, the interviewer asked what waking up to find that our country had elected a black president would mean to them. Of course, many of them said they would cry. One woman said she feared for his life. And another man said something I will never forget– I looked around for the quote but I am not sure who said it originally:

“Rosa sat, so that Martin Luther King, Jr. could walk. Martin Luther King walked so that Obama could run. And Obama ran so that our children could fly.”

It’s a little corny, I know, but it spoke to me. I haven’t given a lot of time to thinking about what it will mean if/when Obama wins. Mostly I just fret about what will happen if he doesn’t. But thinking about it, thinking about that moment… it sent shivers down my spine and tears of pride to my eyes.

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Last night, the kids and I were finally home from the Carnival, and settling in for the night, and Funk asked me if we could do something– I don’t remember what it was. They wanted to play something or something like that. And I said, “Yes we can!” and lifted my fist in the air.

And Funk said, “YES WE CAN!” and pumped her little fist in the air.

And then she said, “BROCK OMAMA!”

Now, I haven’t really talked to the kids much about Obama or the election (except to explain why daddy is gone all the time.) We talked about it one night after we saw Obama on TV, and I mentioned that I was voting for Obama when they came with me to vote last week. Actually, since I was voting in the Courthouse, I was trying to get Funk to yell “OBAMA” in the middle of all those voters. It’s illegal for you and me, but no one’s going to bust a 2 year old, right? (Hubs just about had a heart attack.)

And I don’t know how Funk knew that “Yes we can” was an Obama thing– she must have seen one of the eight trillion commercials, since we are near the Missouri media market.

Still, it made me smile.