Election Stories

There are several old timers that post here and I wonder if they have election stories they could tell while we wait for the exit polls.

My story is about the 1964 LBJ-Goldwater election.

In 1964 I was living in Venezuela and on election day I was way down in the interior, a days drive from the nearest paved road.

As was the Latin-Spanish custom we had a late dinner and left the restaurant in the little town at about 11:00 in the evening. It was a beautiful tropical night within 10 degrees of the equator and the town was already shut down for the night with no lights visible. The stars were the only light, but it was a sky that so few of us that now live with light and other pollution ever see. It was easy to understand why our ancestors were so fascinated with the night sky and developed their mythologies about the stars.

I turned to my colleague and asked, I wonder how the election went.

About that time two donkeys came thundering down the cobble stone street, rushed past us and disappeared down the street.

But of course we did not know if they were celebrating or running for their lives.

After all, at this time in Venezuelan history the Communist were conducting a campaign of killing a policeman a day.

A post script, our host at dinner that night was a German who had been Rommel’s Aide in North Africa. In 1964, about 20 years after the war almost everywhere you went in Venezuela you encountered middle aged Germans that you learned not to ask too much about their background.