015: Women of a Certain Age

L'engle, Forster, Gardam & Heaney & Doodle Dispatches

I.

When you are born in the first week of November in the United States, it means that you associate your birthday with elections from day one. In 1970, the day before I was born, the Democratic Senate retained its majority and increased its numbers in the House, paving the way, at last, for demise of Richard Nixon. In 1976, two days before my birthday, Jimmy Carter beat Gerald Ford on a Democratic platform of economic justice, labor rights, a comprehensive, universal national health care system (yes), the Equal Rights Amendment, increased funding for the Arts and Humanities, rural development through infrastructure improvements, and an energy program focusing on renewables. (source) The first election I actually remember was the one that took away those dreams on November 4th, 1980; I remember my parents listening to the election returns that would usher in the Reagan/Bush era as they drove children home from my birthday party.

Fast forward to 2008, the next time an election fell on …