The Last Schlunk
Richard Nixon, the late great Donald Kaul, old-school mechanical voting machines, and voting against Trump one last time
We never asked for a free lunch, all we wanted was the chance to cast our schlunk against the forces of darkness and have it counted on the side of goodness.
- Donald Kaul
I regret I was never able to officially vote against Richard M. Nixon. I just wasn’t old enough. I missed his final election by four years.
Nixon haunted my high school years. The Watergate break-in happened in 72, my freshman year, the same year he was re-elected. The Watergate hearings were in 73, my sophomore year. And in 74, my junior year, he resigned. We all watched him wave goodbye and then fly away on a helicopter.
I had a satirical Watergate poster on the wall of my bedroom that traced the events and cast of characters involved in Watergate. I wish I remembered more of the details, but all I really recall is that I bought the poster at—I’m not making this up—the Scholastic Book Fair (I also bought a poster of the Milky Way with an X marking a spot labeled “you are here”). We talked about Watergate in school, and even watched some of the hearings in social studies.
When he resigned, I saved the newspaper. It’s hung on the walls of most of the places I’ve lived, as a cautionary tale.
In 1972, the year Nixon was re-elected, I was too young to vote, but my sister had just turned 18, and was newly eligible. I came home from school that day, in the midst of all the Election Day Hoopla, to learn that my sister wasn’t planning to vote. Why? Because it was a lost cause. Richard Nixon was widely predicted to beat George McGovern in a landslide. What was the point?
I was appalled. As we sat and watched after-school TV, I tried to convince her to vote. She hated Nixon nearly as much as I did. She just didn’t think her vote mattered in a historic loss.
I succeeded in convincing her to go by promising I’d go with her. The polling place was my high school, easily within walking distance. We walked to the polls together.
Voting in 1972 in small town Iowa meant using mechanical voting booths. You’d walk into a small booth, which presented you with a large lever and all your voting choices on a grid in front of you. You pulled the large lever twice. The first time you pulled the lever, a small curtain would swish closed behind you, hiding your decisions from the eyes of others. Once hidden by the curtain, you made your choices. When you were done, you’d pull the lever again. That recorded your choices, reset the grid of voting choices, and opened the curtain behind you.
The lever made a loud “schlunk” noise every time you pulled it.
My sister and I entered the high school, and stood in line for a short time. When it was my sister’s turn, we asked if we could go into the booth together. This being small town Iowa, they said, “Sure!” I’m certain this broke election laws.
My sister and I walked into the voting booth, the first time for both of us. We pulled the lever and the curtain swished shut behind us with a “schlunk.”
My sister voted for George McGovern. Then we pulled the lever again, and walked home. McGovern lost in a crushing landslide, but I fell in love with voting.
Donald Kaul, the late, great Des Moines Register columnist (he died in 2018) wrote a column that election day. The title of the column was “The Last Schlunk,” (my apologies for stealing the title for this post). It was dedicated to his delight at pulling the big voting lever at his polling place one last time against Richard Nixon. That his delight was in voting for an already lost cause made the column even more biting. I’ll quote it below, but I strongly suggest you follow the link and read the whole thing.
I remember the first time I voted against Richard Nixon — 1956. A lot of people thought I was voting for Adlai Stevenson. Some thought I was voting against Eisenhower. There was some truth in both suppositions, but really ... way deep down inside ... I was voting against Richard Nixon, he of the unctuous manner.
"Take that, Tricky Dick," I remember yelling as I yanked the voting machine handle and luxuriated in its satisfying "schlunk." (The first time you pull that lever and hear that sound is a great time in one's life; right up there with the other significant first times.)
Then in 1960 I almost broke the voting machine, I pulled the handle so hard. It wasn't that I was so big a fan of John F. Kennedy, although he seemed a charming, gracious man — it was the presence of Richard Nixon that gave my vote its enthusiasm. I would have voted for a cocker spaniel had he been running against Richard Nixon.
If you haven’t figured out where I’m going with this, I’ve reached my destination. In eleven weeks, I get to vote against Donald Trump for the last time (hopefully: if he wins then the 22nd amendment should bar him, if he loses I suspect the era of Trumpism is over for the two-time loser). I won’t hear that deeply satisfying “schlunk” behind me (I haven’t heard it in quite some time). I’ll receive my paper ballot in the mail and fill out the little bubble NOT next to Trump’s name. I’ll seal my ballot, put on too many stamps to ensure the ballot is mailed back, and slip it in the mail box. The “clank” of the mailbox slot slapping shut will have to suffice for the loud Nixonian “schlunk.”
Unlike Donald Kaul, this election won’t be a forgone conclusion. Landslide wins don’t really happen in the U.S. anymore. It’ll be an anxious election night. My vote matters.
So does yours.
Vote.
Peace.