Storey Gym has loomed large in my life since I moved to Cheyenne. It’s where I watched my sons play basketball for Central, against their fierce cross-town rival, East.
It’s also where I vote. Like I did today.
Figuring the lines would be gone after folks went to work and before lunch, I wandered over to Storey at 11 a.m.
The line was still long, almost to the door of the old high school. In the crisp, breezy morning, beneath the U.S. and Wyoming flags whipping in the wind, the line wound to the front door and a couple of banners saying “Vote Here.”
After a half-hour or so, I made it to the front door of Storey Gym. Inside, in the lobby, a conga line of voters snaked back and forth across the tile floor, seven layers deep. The impatient part of me mumbled to the rest of me, “How long is this gonna take?"
The rest of me scolded my inner idiot, “About as long as it took that first cowboy on Lexington Green to decide to pull the trigger and fire the Shot Heard ‘Round the World.”
I have never seen so many people waiting to vote, and I had another half hour or so to eyeball the crowd. They looked just like my friends and neighbors. Most in working clothes, and several moms with babies on hips. I was far from the youngest in line, but not the oldest.
We had a chance to check each other out, to nod and tell lame jokes as the lines wound close together. I passed the same guy five times, and before were ushered into the gym to vote, it was like we were amigos.
There wasn’t an overt rainbow unicorn or a rabid Meal Team Sixer in evidence. There were only neighbors waiting together to vote. No shenanigans whatsoever. It felt, to me, like the solemnity of the place and the occasion provoked civility and prevented ass-holery.
A few folks had to excuse themselves from line to answer a call of nature. When they returned to their place, their place was kept for them. No jostling for position, nobody demanding “cuts”, no shrill talk.
Like I said, these are my neighbors.
Once I got my ballot, after showing my driver’s license, it took only a few minutes to punch buttons and fill it out. To justify my wait in line. To justify that itchy trigger finger at Lexington. To deserve my citizenship.
I felt the presence of something else in Storey Gym today. I can only describe it as the presence of history, the history that we make together as citizens. I think everyone else felt it in their own way.
We heard the echo of the distant gunfire of musketry. And we voted so that gunfire stays in the distant past.
From what I understand, the heavy voter turnout across the country mirrors that of my neighbors in Cheyenne. I hope they approach their duty with the solemnity due it.
Here in the Big Empty, we got off the couch, and put our shoulders to the wheel. From what I saw today at Storey Gym, nobody can say with a straight face that the people of Wyoming weren’t given a chance to speak or were shy about what they have to say.
I, for one, am impressed and humbled.
I’ve watched a lot of high school basketball games at Storey Gym, and my team has won some and lost some. But the best team has always won. The scoreboard doesn’t lie.
I can say the same thing about the election of 2024
Rod Miller can be reached at: RodsMillerWyo@yahoo.com
