For the first time since I became eligible to vote in 1984, I'm not going to the polls on election day. But it's not because I don't care. Instead, it's because I voted early.
Some people have said I'll be missing out on a community event by not voting at my local polling place on election day, but when I voted at the Zeidler Municipal Building, I had about the same amount of conversation I usually do at the polls -- which is to say, very little -- and it took me a total of, perhaps, eight minutes.
I'm not antisocial, but I typically vote before work and so most people look tired. They clutch coffee mugs or exchange a few words with a spouse or a friend, but people generally aren't chatting away.
At least not like I remember my fellow voters doing around dinner time on election day 1992, when I waited in a long line on Hackett and Belleview to vote (later that night Bruce Springsteen told me -- and the thousands of others at the Bradley Center -- that Bill Clinton had won).
I vote a lot. I won't say I vote every single a ballot is printed for my ward, but pretty darn close. I vote in primaries, I vote for alderpeople and mayor and for school board and county supervisors and governor and the rest.
I'm not sad today that I won't stand shoulder to shoulder with my neighbors for, potentially, hours on end. I saw them at the park on the Fourth of July and for the Easter Egg Hunt, at the annual Trick or Treat and after-party, at the neighborhood association meeting in my backyard in August ... you get the idea.
The only thing I think I'm really missing out on is all that free stuff I could have gotten if I'd thought to keep my "I Voted" sticker I got nearly a month ago.
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he lived until he was 17, Bobby received his BA-Mass Communications from UWM in 1989 and has lived in Walker's Point, Bay View, Enderis Park, South Milwaukee and on the East Side.
He has published three non-fiction books in Italy – including one about an event in Milwaukee history, which was published in the U.S. in autumn 2010. Four more books, all about Milwaukee, have been published by The History Press.
With his most recent band, The Yell Leaders, Bobby released four LPs and had a songs featured in episodes of TV's "Party of Five" and "Dawson's Creek," and films in Japan, South America and the U.S. The Yell Leaders were named the best unsigned band in their region by VH-1 as part of its Rock Across America 1998 Tour. Most recently, the band contributed tracks to a UK vinyl/CD tribute to the Redskins and collaborated on a track with Italian novelist Enrico Remmert.
He's produced three installments of the "OMCD" series of local music compilations for OnMilwaukee.com and in 2007 produced a CD of Italian music and poetry.
In 2005, he was awarded the City of Asti's (Italy) Journalism Prize for his work focusing on that area. He has also won awards from the Milwaukee Press Club.
He has be heard on 88Nine Radio Milwaukee talking about his "Urban Spelunking" series of stories, in that station's most popular podcast.
