By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

We have arrived at Election Eve 2020.

I am about to tell you what I am feeling at this moment. I am feeling as anxious and as downright giddy as I did when I voted for the very first time for president of the United States.

That was in 1972. The contest between President Richard Nixon and Sen. George McGovern didn’t turn out the way I wanted. You know how it went: Nixon won a 49-state landslide.

I was not quite 23 years of age then. The voting age had been set at 18 in 1971 with ratification of the 26th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, so I was ineligible to vote in 1968. Instead, I was inducted into the U.S. Army and spent some time in Vietnam in 1969.

I came home in 1970 confused about the Vietnam War. The 1972 election featured two men with vastly different views on matters of war and peace. President Nixon vowed to stay the course and continue a gradual withdrawal; Sen. McGovern wanted to pull out immediately. I sided with McGovern, given my own confusion about the war.

I was giddy then because I did not foresee the drubbing my candidate would suffer. However, casting my first vote for president was a big deal for me then.

Here we are in the present day. Casting my most recent vote for president feels every bit as big now as it did then. The reasons differ.

I was horrified four years ago by the election of Donald Trump. I am hopeful in the extreme that I can be part of what I hope is a serious course correction. Without that correction, I fear for the direction that Trump might drag this nation. I voted with extreme enthusiasm for Joe Biden.

The nation needs to rescue itself from the mistake it made when it allowed Trump to score a fluky Electoral College victory. You know the saying, “Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.”

Oh, man, my hope on Election Eve is that we won’t shame ourselves a second time. I am anxious tonight. I also am hoping I can get a good night’s sleep.