BUCKING THE SYSTEM: MORE PEOPLE NEED TO TAKE A LESSON IN RESPONSIBILITY

As a child, I often received lessons on responsibility.

I was responsible for cleaning my room and feeding the dog, spending my allowance wisely and taking the Kool-Aid pitcher out of the refrigerator when I drank the last of it.

These were simple yet important responsibilities, and there were always repercussions if I failed to perform them. My responsibilities grew in size and content as I did.

As a teen-ager, I found my responsibilities no longer focused only on me. For example, as an older child, I was supposed to act responsibly and set a good example for other kids in the church, which in effect meant no more sleeping or passing notes during the sermons.

As an athlete, I also had the responsibility of guarding my health and giving my all for the team. These duties were in addition to my personal responsibilities, which now included keeping at least a dollar's worth of gas and the occasional quart of oil in my car.

Repercussions were harsher and more swift now. Gone were the days of simple scoldings for a forgotten act - as a teenager I had to endure throwing engine rods, missing athletic events and receiving embarrassing public tongue lashings from irate pastors when I forgot my responsibilities.

My childhood was my training ground, and although I'm not the most responsible person I know, there were some hard-won lessons gained back then.

For example, I well-understood my responsibility last Tuesday when I got up bright and early and went to my polling place to vote.

Too many people gave their lives, marriages and familial relationships up so that I, a black female, could have the opportunity to cast a ballot in an election.

This was one of those hard-won lessons.

You see, I neglected to vote once before, and the response from my mother was enough to ensure I would never again miss another opportunity.

I didn't miss a presidential election that day -- as a matter of fact, it was an April election. Why I didn't go to Bertrand that day to cast my ballot I don't know -- I just know I won't make that mistake again.

I guess I'd forgotten that there were only three Zellars' on the page, so it was pretty easy to see who had come by and who hadn't. Later on (after the polls had closed,) Mom just looked at me and said "You didn't vote, did you?" She had just the right tenure in her voice to make it seem as if I'd committed heresy or something.

"No," I said, somewhat sheepishly. She just looked at me as if I were so much dog mess on her shoes.

"Just remember that," she said. That's all she said, but that's also all it took to bring back every image I'd ever seen of a freedom rider or the women's suffrage movement.

The images made a strong impression. I guess that's why I was so bothered by the turnout in last Tuesday's elections. I don't think any town had a 20 percent voting rate that day.

That means fewer than one in five registered voters bothered to get their lazy selves off the sofa and down to their polling place. What's even worse, that doesn't take into account the number of eligible voters who AREN'T registered to vote.

Wake up, people. The world and our nation are in a state of flux, and just about everybody seems to have an opinion about it. But what good is that opinion if you don't even care enough to go vote on the issues and the people who will decide them?

And what's worse, it's all of the nonvoters who will be griping about the increased taxes and lack of ethnic diversity in our city for the rest of the year. It's just ignorance, utter ignorance.

I don't know what these people are waiting on. Every election is an important election, even if there aren't any contests.

If nothing else, we have a responsibility to be informed, and we can't do that unless we go and see exactly what's on the ballot. We wouldn't want anybody to slip anything in on us, now would we?

Every voter who participated in their elections Tuesday performed their responsibility.

Unfortunately, because so few of us did so, any repercussions will affect entire communities rather than individual people.

~Tamara Zellars Buck is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.