In Northeast Philadelphia, a tide of gray washed into Rhawnhurst Elementary School - the older voters of Ward 56, Division 16.
Senior after senior moved gingerly toward the polls, among them 80-year-old Lorraine Tarnowski, who leaned heavily on a sturdy aluminum cane. Each step was an effort, but she was determined to participate in an American rite on a warm and important April morning.
Tarnowski came out for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. She likes the senator's health-care plan, vital now that Tarnowski is nursing a spinal injury and battling high blood pressure. But it's not just health care. It's food prices. And energy costs. And an economy that has slid from bad to worse.
"When you're a senior citizen," Tarnowski said, "you worry about everything."
It was clear yesterday that people were reacting to the buzz and pulse of a special, out-of-the-ordinary day.
In some cases, democracy got loud, like outside the Reading Terminal Market at 12th and Filbert Streets in Center City.
There, about 30 Clinton supporters encountered 20 supporters of Sen. Barack Obama in a noontime standoff.
Shouts of "O-bama!" were met with chants of "No-bama!" Meanwhile, Olga Vives, a National Organization for Women vice president from Virginia, added her own rhythmic variation: "Chelsea's mama, not Obama."
In Chester County, people voted old-school at the West End Fire Company in Coatesville: with paper ballots run through an optical scanner. To keep things simple, the county decided several years ago to stick with pencil and paper and stay off the high-tech road.
As though inspired by the old-style approach, at least one voter expressed a wistful wish for a different kind of candidate.
"I would have voted for Dr. King, if he was alive," said Theresa Christian, a 38-year-old African American bus driver.
