I just spent a half-hour parked outside my apartment with my cab driver.  His words:

“I was born in Haiti.  I was top of my class.  I was intelligent.

“When I came to America, I went to public school.  The teachers wouldn’t listen to me.  I had financial problems and went to a welfare office.  They wouldn’t help me.  I spent five days homeless in a train station.  I went to the top of a building and thought about jumping off.  I thought that this country was no place for a black man.  I thought that this skin didn’t belong here.

“Yesterday, I felt my intelligence coming back.”

After this - no kidding - I shook his hands with both of mine, and he kissed my hands, and said “I love you, man.”  I told him I loved him too.

If this election gives the country even remotely the sense of connectedness it just gave me, then we’re going to be okay.