Early voting in Tennessee started 6 days ago, on Oct. 13, and in my town, the lines have been consistently long. I tried earlier in the week, but the predicted 30 minute wait would have made me later than usual to work. So I decided to try Saturday, knowing that a lot of other folks would, too.

I arrived at the courthouse around 10:40, and only as the clock moved toward 11:30 did the line inside begin to shrink. Voting stops at 12 on Saturday, so I guess a lot of people figured it was too late to try. People exchanged small talk or chatted on cell phones - there was universal agreement that the line today was nothing compared with what it would be on Nov. 4.

Outside the campaigners and their supporters crowded up against the invisible 100-foot boundary for campaign materials. They waved and cheered and occasionally swapped thumbs-up with arriving or departing voters, or folks bound for the recently completed new home for the county historical archives, which, like the grand county building itself, had been the subject of some bitter local politics.

The sky was blue, the air finally fall-cool after a cold front swept through, and the trees had a little bit of color on them. A Halloween tableau in front of the courthouse cheerily mocked the dark forces and fear of the unknown that originally inspired the holiday. One of our high schools (6-1) had beaten an undefeated (7-0) Nashville team last night, so there was an air of celebration.

Taken altogether, it was a small-town scene that is being repeated everywhere. Even in big cities, the voting process narrows down to neighborhoods, erasing the vast megalopolis and reminding everyone that all politics is local.

Having grown up in the South during the civil rights era, I have a keen appreciation of the need to vote at every opportunity, even if all the choices are less than palatable. A vote is an affirmation of faith in a system many still regard as a grand experiment.

One can hold one's nose and hope for better choices next time; can declare that so and so may hold such and such office, but they're not "my" (insert title). But not voting is a surrender to the short-term and to despair and cynicism. It's a slap in the face to those men and women standing in harm's way so we can gripe about not having any good choices, or having choices that are desperately opposite in intentions.

That, IMHO, is not an option.