What I've Learned So Far... Erma Bombeck Award Winning Humorist Mike Ball

The election is over. The cheers and tears of that historic November night are now just a lingering joyful memory. The golden light of a new dawn is breaking over America, chasing the shadows of fear from the darkest corners of a hopeful world.

And Sarah Palin is back home in Wasilla, working on her new eBay ad:

"Slightly Used Designer Wardrobe For Immediate Sale. I Accept Cash Only - In Small Unmarked Bills!"

Now we have some time to catch our collective breath from America's latest quadrennial political extravaganza, and I would like to take this opportunity to spend a few moments reflecting on what just happened. And while I'm at it, I'd like to lay out a few things that I could really live without for a while.

He might be somewhere in the neighborhood of eighty years old. He is tall and lean and weathered and black, and he looks like he is right at home under the Virginia sun. He has been standing in line for two hours, with his equally weathered wife at his side, and he is still less than half way through the line. He is calmly and happily waiting for his turn to vote.

The television reporter asks him how he feels, and a shy smile lights up his face as he opens his mouth to speak. But then his voice catches in his throat, and he has to cough and clear his throat and wipe the corner of his eye before he can answer. He looks at his wife, and says, "I never thought I'd see this day."

I'm walking to work and a conservatively dressed white man in his sixties stops me to hand me a "Don't Forget To Vote" door hanger. His haircut, polished shoes and wool jacket say "lawyer," or maybe "accountant." The logo on the door hanger he gives me says, "Barack Obama."