Election Nights with Mama: 44 years of Memories

Tonight, I will get off work at the store at 8PM, just as the polls close in California.  I will call mama.

My first clear presidential election memory is from November 1976.   We were still a year away from getting a television; our only electronic to the outside world was our hefty Zenith radio.  The size of a carry-on suitcase, it sat next to the tel…