This nation and others are celebrating the dawning of a United States far different than the land where I awoke this morning. Regardless of party affiliation, the change is already apparent and quickly arrived.

America’s president-elect embodies a vicissitude in the nation’s politics with his physical make-up, differing so greatly from the string of leaders to come before him. Those characteristics and his promise of a new approach to policy are causing people to buy into a world of possibility and hope – a feeling we might soon learn to call prosperity, though it’s hard to name because we’ve never experienced it before. It’s never seemed so real or authentic.

The line was long at the election precinct this morning but it moved fast. For my wife and I, the only obstacle to overcome was the chily autumn wind. We arrived 20 minutes before the polls opened to deal with issues that we heard might occur: faulty ballot machines, our names being mysteriously left off the registration list or listed at another location across town.

We live in a small community where the neighborhoods are predominantly working class. These people turned out early to change history – either by voting for the first African-American man to serve as president or the first female vice-president. Given the town’s size, we could tell by the yard signs that were prevalent in front yards and medians that the Republican ticket was the more popular option here, as it would be in the entire state of Kansas.

Yet, in half-a-day’s time, my wife and I had gone from voting in a contentious election to watching a man from modest means address a nation as its president-elect. Barack Obama’s acceptance speech was a historic moment for America and African-Americans, but it was also transcendent.

One look at my photo on this web site should tell that my ethnic background and physical appearance might be as opposite to Obama’s as is possible. In his words, though, he represented those of us who’ve made our own way and continue dreaming of achieving our true potential and leaving a better world for our children to inherit.

I hadn’t considered that the Obamas would be raising a family in the White House. Before his speech he walked on stage with his wife and his daughters, and I saw an ordinary man who wanted a place he could raise his own children. He showed humility even in victory, extending a hand to people whose vote he did not win and never accepted the icon status with which the cheering crowd so wanted to label him.

The challenges America faces are the toughest its ever faced. The climb will be steep, but those troubles are at least as real as these new sentiments of possibility and real answers. We’ll find them, together, as a nation. We needed only someone to remind us of what makes this country great, whose life itself is evidence that change is not only possible, but magnificent.

Construction on the second phase of the Genesis Creek housing development began in 2006 in the pasture behind our house. The land was leveled, the trees were cleared and the quiet backcountry prairie was replaced with an immense brown field with fresh asphalt in the shape of two cul-de-sacs and one long neighborhood street poured down its middle.

Phase one, less than a block away, completed construction earlier in 2006. The first houses to come on the market were priced in the $250,000 range and sold liberally, at first, but slowed as other similar developments sprouted across town. Several homes were still available when phase two began later in the spring.

Two years later, the real estate market, the loan crisis, Wall Street turmoil and general instability has convinced the builders from starting construction on any more houses. The few that were underway were finished – the insides painted – and now the worker trucks have disappeared.

Only four houses have been built in Phase Two to date. One stands lonely on the asphalt circle, its porch light switched on day and night to ward off graffitists.

Nature is reclaiming the land where foundations haven’t been dug yet. Feather-topped weeds sprouted this fall as the Earth has begun to heal itself. Earlier in the summer, wild sunflowers swept across the clearing, some standing more than eight feet tall and looming over the empty streets with pock-marked faces.

Progess is inevitable, I’ve been told, but I wish the stalling market could have been forecasted sooner – before the land was scarred for more houses. This argument probably holds little weight as I look out and wish all this from a house built in the same pasture once kept by a different owner. But the house was nearly 10 years old when we bought it and it very definitely was needed. We would have been displaced without it.

I think now about the wild life and the trees that were pushed away or killed by the land-scraping equipment. I am far from an environmentalist and only a partial tree hugger. Seeing this progress, though, or lack thereof, makes me regret my decision to buy a plot in a newer neighborhood when an older home would have done just as fine.

I won’t make that mistake again. I wish I could say the same for developers.

I’m not sure how a serious journalist or any major news organization can claim impartiality this election season, and I’m not alluding to the recent studies that show a media bias toward Obama. I’m referring to the exclusion of independent candidates from debates, interviews and other forums in which they could make their positions be known.

The following letter from Ralph Nader that was sent to most major news organizations this week condemns the media for its coverage of the presidential election race. No matter what party you belong to or what you think of Nader (pompous windbag, left-leaning loon or righteous consumer advocate and environmentalist,) he makes some interesting points. I am not voting for him on Tuesday, but I thought I would post his letter as indemnification from someone who occasionally gets paid for writing about politics.

Open Letter to Members of the National Media

Dear Members of the 4th Estate:

Ralph Nader

Side by side, they’ve been placed at eye level on the highest shelf, the Price Chopper management conscious not to show any favoritism for either candidate that might cause lost business. Fittingly, on the left Obama sits with his fingers intertwined and, on the right, McCain is standing proudly before a background draped with an American flag.

It can be inferred from the titles that both books paint these men as down-to-earth Americans and yet extraordinary politicians with simple ideas for transforming the nation. Obama’s book smartly combines the words “audacity” and “hope” as a way to an emboldened American while McCain’s touts his experience as a prisoner of war that can offer the way to a “braver life.” The books are even alike in page count – topping out at about 200 words each.

One man will have to keep his vision on a smaller scale after the election 12 days from now. The vision that he’s casting at rallys in battleground states, such as Missouri and Colorado, will be turned away. The other’s vision will be the one shared by the nation. And, for now, you can read about them both by the pharmacist’s counter and the trick-or-treat candy aisle.

In all, there are actually three titles on these bookshelves with each candidate on the cover. The more popular sellers described above are at eye-level near the main entry and the shopping cart pen. Each row of political books is completely full and it doesn’t appear as though there have been many takers.

Maybe the three nationally broadcast debates and the vice presidential showdown in St. Louis were enough for average Americans to take stock in their candidates. Or maybe America is sick of the rhetoric and have already made up their minds which candidate they are going to vote for – or are so sickened by the onslaught of TV and radio commercials, the flyers and yard signs, recorded telephone calls and online banner ads that they have decided not to vote.

During the next election cycle, my contribution to America will be a proposal that all campaign efforts be suspended and that biographies about the candidates be required reading before the people can vote. I’m guessing the nation would rather be spared the overexposure to promotional materials than be inundated again.

Lines would form outside the Hen Houses and Piggly Wigglys throughout Kansas so people could buy copies. Perhaps then one of the candidates would truly be brave and authorize a romance novelist to tell about his quest for the White House. Now that would get my vote, but only if the cover art work is appropriate.

In the backyard, the dogs give off their first barks, chasing squirrels that balance along the fencetops and powerlines, or in suspicion of random hedge apples that fall invisibly behind the fence and land in the underbrush with rustling sound. They are animals in a long line of creatures that came before them, as we are, and yet they are in some cases 4-5 generations removed from the farm dogs that ran these fields when I was much younger and the pastures were yet to be made over into suburban housing.

My generation is all grown up now, and making the table for children of their own. The first real generation defined by media (or maybe defied), raised with Henry and Ribsy – with Pony Boy and Dally – with wet recesses sitting “Indian style” watching Reading Rainbow and Electric Company, then all that giving way to Nirvana, phony apathy and downtrodden plaid.

We’re successes now, and we’re alcoholics. We’ve dyed our hair, we’ve died of cancer. We’ve married the right person, and there is love still to be claimed for some. Those are the extremes, but I can testify to personal knowledge of those situations or those who are living them … and I’ve come out on the fair side.

Despite our individual stations, our generation has apparently found hope the way each one does before it. We’ve found the hope to make lives for the younger versions of us in a world more chaotic and dangerous than the one we already knew to be chaotic and dangerous. We’ve done this not knowing if our offspring will benefit by timing, by chance or dumb luck the same way we have, to avoid any significant injury or trouble.

I can remember so many close calls, so many temptations when I had the good fortune to slip past thanks to someone else’s wisdom, circumstance or my own temporary strong will. I can remember a few nights out behind a local motel where these old men would sell bootleg liquor to carloads of kids brave enough (or stupid enough) to park and wait outside of rooms rented by the quarter-hour. My generation, as I immediately experienced it, in dim garages with lawn chairs and oily tools hanging on the walls while sniffing butane from cannisters with towels draped over their heads. Good friends popped pills at the lunch table and washed down uppers with milk from the same chocolate cartons we drank from in grade school.

Another good friend with a lesser affliction, but a genetic hindrance instead, namely the lack of intelligence replaced with what he saw as street wisdom. He was killed in a motorcycle drag race. He was raised on the same streets with kids the same age who lived in the same ranch-style houses with paint flecking, but many of them are still here 15 years later and haven’t done a thing wrong. Now the experiences that he lost and the sadness of his passing is more evident.

But these are the risks I contemplate this morning while making a simple start to the day – while I sip coffee and peel eggs. I have all Saturday to be with my children – to guide them and see them through the day, and still I will make mistakes. Come Monday, they are sent back into public schools and I have to trust in people my age to care for them and teach them, when I doubt my own ability to do that sometimes. It’s then that I depend on all the connectors – all the similarities we share in our upbringings. I suppose you could call it the American way, but isn’t it this way in other nations? Maybe, but with different seasons and a lighter menu.