Next Tuesday, Nov. 8, I plan to visit the Boothbay Harbor Town Hall/Fire Station to vote. I hope you will, too.

I know we can vote early, as lots of our friends and neighbors do. I applaud them for doing so.

On Election Day, I get a thrill when I walk up to a friendly local election clerk, ask for a ballot, and walk to the booth. To cast a secret vote with no one looking over my shoulder is magical. We Americans have the right to vote. Lots of folks in other parts of the world do not.

My folks never missed a chance to vote. I must have been 6 or 7 when Mom walked me up to the school, where she greeted the ladies sitting at a long table. After a poll book was signed, they directed us to an imposing metal machine. Mom then pulled a lever that unlocked the machine and triggered a privacy drape to hide us from the clerks.

Then she clicked a series of toggle switches, explaining that she was voting. After she finished, she pulled the lever, and the drape disappeared.

Mom explained that we all have the right to vote and a duty to do so.

Later I learned that the big metal object was a mechanical counting machine that tallied the votes. It was big and heavy on purpose to prevent theft. In other places, folks voted by paper ballots.

Today we insert our ballots into a computerized counting machine. If someone questions the validity of the machine count, the election volunteers can re-count the backup paper ballots.

The only time I have not voted in person was in 1967 when I lived in a hut on the sprawling Marine Corps base at Phu Bai, Vietnam. My hometown county clerk had mailed me a ballot, and I took it to my commanding officer. He looked at it and directed me to a table on the other side of his office, saying he didn’t want to see it.

After I filled it out, I put it in an envelope and sealed it. The CO verified it with a signature, and I stuffed it in the mailbag. As my mom had instructed, I did my duty. I don’t remember the name of the candidate I supported. I think it may have been a young guy who became mayor and later a long-serving U.S. Senator. I hope so. He was a good guy and a stellar public servant.

Around the same time, in September 1967, the South Vietnamese government was holding a presidential election. At least that is what they said they were doing, as it was not like any election I had ever witnessed, before or since. On their Election Day, I was with a group of Marines driving into the old imperial capital called Hue (pronounced whey). I seem to remember we were on a mission to visit the military supply headquarters to pick up pallets of a carbonated beverage that was very popular, especially when chilled.

On our way, we passed Hue's Catholic cathedral, an imposing dark structure with twin towers. There, a group of local citizens were standing in line. Many were women wearing black pajamas, flowing shirts and conical fiber hats.

As we stopped to watch, we saw them jabbering away. I could not understand what they were saying, but they all seemed to be having a good time. That is until the church doors opened, and a group of soldiers, all sporting rifles slung over their shoulders, appeared. The joyous jabbering stopped as soldiers escorted the voters, one at a time, into the church. I assumed they helped them vote and sent them out a side door.

Later, the military newspaper, “Stars and Stripes,” said two candidates, both generals, the same guys who ran the military junta, had been victorious. What a surprise! The guys who controlled the soldiers with rifles, the same guys who ran the polling stations, won. How about that?

On every Election Day, I think about September 1967 when I walk into the polls. And I say a quiet thank you prayer that I was lucky to have been born in the USA.

Today, for all the nasty TV commercials, hot button rhetoric accusing candidates of being spawns of Satan, or worse, there will not be any armed soldiers at the polls in Boothbay, Southport, Edgecomb, Wiscasset, or Damariscotta.

The only time we will likely be stopped will be to greet a volunteer who hands out a sticker saying: “I voted.” And that experience, dear readers, is worth celebrating, maybe with a bite to eat paired with an adult beverage.

Don't forget to vote on Tuesday, Nov. 8.