Hint: The mistake I made on election night involved Facebook

I made a big mistake on election night. Actually, it was Wednesday morning, just past 3 a.m.

I’ll tell you in a minute what I did.

First, let me say there are few more exciting places to spend an election night than a newsroom, with its stacks of pizza boxes and pots of coffee and wall of televisions.

While other folks are at home doing nothing but watching one map of America turn red and blue, we’re posting and polishing stories about things happening in our city like sheriff races and tax freeze referendums.

Meanwhile, a president is slowly being elected, and from time to time we look at the wall and catch glimpses of the action. Then, when the local pages are done and gone, we grab another cold slice and turn our full attention to the wall.

My first election in a newsroom was 16 years ago at the Leaf-Chronicle in Clarksville, Tenn. I’ll never forget the moment when one of the networks called the presidential race for Al Gore, and our education reporter pumped her fist and yelled, “Yes!” Then she apologized.

You don’t root in the newsroom.

Early Wednesday morning when it was over, one of the college students who’d helped us check polling precincts began rattling off the sins of our new president-elect.

It was an awkward moment, but it made me think of something that happened almost exactly 40 years earlier.

I was 8 years old, and Jimmy Carter had just been elected president. My parents had both voted for Gerald Ford, and they told me the terrible things that were going to happen to America. I didn’t understand what they were saying, but I could tell that it was the end.

I went outside and rode my bike. It was a Schwinn, back when having one meant something. I rode in big circles in the gravel driveway, looking up at the sun shining and the clouds floating. It didn’t feel like the world was ending.

And you know what? It didn’t. I told that story in the newsroom, and the students looked at me as young people do when addressed by the very old.

That wasn’t the mistake I made.

About 30 minutes later, after President-Elect Trump had delivered his speech and folks were headed home, I walked around the newsroom throwing away pizza boxes and turning out lights.

My phone rang, and I sat down for a few minutes to take the call. Then I hung up and looked at the screen.

And that’s when I did it: I touched the Facebook icon.

And saw this post from a female friend: “It’s amazing what God will do when His people humble themselves, and pray! Such a victory!”

Now, I consider myself a praying man. And yes, I voted. But I did not pray that my candidate would win, because I wasn’t convinced that was a good thing.

In fact, I’m rarely sure that what I want to happen is what should actually happen, or what God should do. I hope that’s not a lack of faith.

Later that day, something funny happened.

I’d gone home and caught a couple hours of sleep and was headed back downtown. I stopped at a red light behind a pickup truck driven by a young woman. She had a “Make America Great Again” sticker on her bumper.

And on the right side of her rear window was the word “It.”

And a stick man having intimate relations with the “It.”

Same presidential candidate as the Facebook lady, slightly different philosophy.

At least, I thought it was funny.

This story was originally published November 11, 2016 at 8:49 PM with the headline "Hint: The mistake I made on election night involved Facebook."