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Politics

Every clip-clop says add bus, add bus

By CHANDRA BROADWATER
Published November 8, 2006

HILL ’N DALE  — Sue Dalby couldn’t find a ride to the polls. So she took her horse.

From her Hill ’n Dale home, the 53-year-old and her 9-year-old American paint horse, Show Me Mercy, trotted down the grassy median of State Road 50 on Tuesday morning. Past the semitrailer trucks and cars, a mile up the road to the Hillside Community Baptist Church, Precinct 36.

While she could have voted absentee, Dalby, who is disabled and can’t drive, wanted to make a point. She’s angry there isn’t a bus that serves the eastern part of Hernando County.

And she wasn’t about to miss Election Day.

“The county commissioners seem to believe that the county stops at U.S. 41,” Dalby said, just before saddling up Mercy for the ride. “There’s no bus service on the east side of 41, no matter how many people live this way. All we need is one. Just one bus that runs across 50 and back.”

On Sunday, she knew what she had to do. She laid her clothes out the following night: jeans, a pinkish-red shirt and a stars-and-stripes visor.

She had spent the previous weekend calling friends to see if she could get a ride to the precinct. But no one could take her.

Last week Dalby also called the county-run Trans-Hernando Para-Transit van service. It helps disabled residents get to medical appointments and go grocery shopping. But the service couldn’t do it — rides to the polls were not a priority.

Dalby hasn’t driven for four years, ever since she fell off a ladder in her back yard while trying to get a nail out of a tree. It was two hours before anyone found her in this sparsely populated, sprawling part of the county. She lives alone.

The fall fractured her right leg, and it never properly healed. That means she can’t push down hard enough on a gas or brake pedal.

But it helps to have Mercy, whom Dalby calls “the love of my life.” Along with the three dogs, they have been a happy family for six years, ever since Mercy was 3.

The calm, quiet brown-and-white horse — with one brown eye and the other blue — saunters past the heavy traffic whizzing by on SR 50 with ease. Tuesday morning was no different.

Once they arrived at the Hillside church, Dalby tied Mercy to a small tree out front.

As she voted, precinct workers peeked outside to see the horse standing quietly out front, nibbling on the tree.
“Ooh, what a pretty horse,” one voter said as she went inside.

Another said he couldn’t blame Dalby for getting there any way she could.

Ten minutes later, Dalby returned with an “I voted” sticker on her T-shirt. She walked over and put another on Mercy’s saddle.

Then she pulled herself back onto the horse, and trotted back home.

- Chandra Broadwater can be reached at cbroadwater@sptimes.com or (352) 848-1432.

[Last modified November 8, 2006, 06:49:52]