Time passes so quickly. I knew I hadn't posted since the night before the NH primary, but it's hard to believe that that was so long ago. Now I'm forced to choose between the historical (election day reflections and the trip home) and the present, or at least recent, political stuff--not to mention the cool Ypsilanti stuff that's been going on. And, of course, there are the pictures that I promised. So, I feel overwhelmed by my debt to the two or three faithful readers of my little blog.
Let's start with election day in New Hampshire. As more detailed stories come to mind, I'll post them.
I arrived at Dean Volunteer Central at 6:30, feeling like I had let people down by not showing at 6 a.m. I was immediately assigned Wolfesboro duty, along with Melissa T*homas. Melissa and I had clicked early on in my tenure because we were the two greatest smartasses in the North Conway office. I was pleased to finally work with her, and I think Melissa felt the same way. Little did I know that she's a PhD political economist from the Kennedy School, and a lawyer, working for the World Bank in the field of government corruption. I have a few stories about world travel, thanks to the navy, but nothing like this lady has to say. I wish I could invite her to at least one dinner party a year, just to remind us all of how provincial our foreign policy can be.
In Wolfesboro we were immediately sent to the polling station, a tall-spired protestant church. The local custom was for partisans to stand on the side of the driveway further away from the church, which we did. The local Dean group couldn't have been nicer. They all wanted to know where we hailed from, enough that Melissa and I took turns speaking first and second, and they all thanked us profusely for being there to get out the vote for Howard Dean. We were treated to coffee, hot chocolate and doughnuts, given commemorative hats and scarves, and regaled as the "true heroes of the campaign." You know, a guy could learn to like this kind of lifestyle. Except for having to do the Dean Volunteer Upper Body Workout. And yet, I did it, joyfully, thanks to the company I kept on this subzero election day.
Melissa decided we needed an American flag at our post. With directions from the locals (and some redirections once we got downtown) she bought a 3' x 4' flag at the hardware store, which we waved along with our Dean signs. Apparently, this was too much for some voters, as I watched their faces turn to disgust when they passed us. (Those folks always had Bush-Cheney bumperstickers, by the way.) Melissa said that it was her tradition to buy a flag for every event in which she participated, just to remind the opposition that the flag belongs to all of us. At the time, I shrugged her off with an "of course" kind of reaction. In retrospect, I admire her choice and I plan to emulate her.
As I said, waving the American flag with the Dean signs was too much for some. Once, an eightyish man furiously rolled down the window of his 1980ish Oldsmobile and yelled, "How will you feel when HE is in office and has his FINGER on the BUTTON?" We Deaniacs glanced at each other and shrugged. "Just fine!" I responded, to which he shook his head violently and rolled up his window as if to prevent the spread of my disease. (Naturally, the Good Response came to me after he was beyond earshot: "Safer than I do now!" I should have said.)
I think I experienced democracy in it's most basic form that day.
It involved a seventy-ish Dean supporter--I feel horrible now not being able to remember her name--Jeanine, I think it was--but she was a spitfire regardless of her age, and damned funny, too. (We had chatted briefly at Wolfesboro's Dean command center, which was that 19th century farm house I had dreamt about, except that it was converted into a business electronics equipment office, replete with super-efficient wood-burning stoves in every old fireplace.) Anyway, as this charming woman and I stood outside the church and spoke about the wretched Bush Administration, a huge green GM car with a beige landau roof pulled up next to us. The driver rolled down the passenger window to talk to my friend.
"Jeanine? Is that you?"
"Of COURSE it is, Harold. How are you?"
"I'm fine," he yelled, "except that I can't understand that sign you're holding!"
"It's for Howard Dean," she yelled back. "What's so hard to understand?"
"Well, it's hard to understand why you're supportin' gay marriage, that's what!"
"Dean supports 'civil unions!' And what's wrong with that? Those folks deserve rights, too!"
"No they don't," Harold said. "It's unnatural!"
"'Course they do! They're not going away, Harold! And they deserve the same rights as the rest of us!"
"No they don't, Jeanine! What's wrong with you?" Harold asked.
"Nothin' at all, Harold! What are you gonna do--shoot 'em all?"
"Yeah, that's right!" he said, laughing. I got the impression that he was trying to be funny, but none of us thought it was funny--especially Jeanine.
"You go on, then. I don't want to talk to you any more," she said and turned toward me. Harold shook his head and drove up the driveway.
"I'm very embarrassed that you had to witness that," she said. "We're not all Neanderthals up here in the wilds of New Hampshire."
"I know that," I said, thinking of every Dean volunteer I had met that day, and yet feeling sorry for her. She was afraid that I would leave Wolfesboro with the impression of Harold foremost on my memory. Quite the contrary: I'll always remember Jeanine and her spirit.
The Celebration Party in Jackson, NH was short-lived for me. Upon our arrival at the bar, a smug Wolf Blitzer was declaring Kerry the winner with only 8% reporting. Of course, it only got worse that night. I waved good-bye to my newfournd comrades, traded email addys with a few, and I went back to the condo to pack. That night, my roommates had given me a key that supposedly opened the door to the condo. I drove 25 minutes, expecting to be packed and in bed by 10 p.m. Unfortunately, the key didn't work. It took me several hours to track down my roommates so that I could go to bed "early," as in 12:30 a.m.
My return trip was mostly safe. I ran into a snowstorm in western Quebec and eastern Ontario. Three hours east of Toronto I hit an ice patch that had already taken out six or eight cars. I didn't have any traction, either, and chose to bail out in the median rather than hit the truck in front of me. I was lucky. I maintained enough steering control (no wait--that part was *skill*, not luck) to nose into the shallow gully and point the car back up to the road. There was only 12" to 16" of powder snow, so I ran the car up and down the side of the gully until I had momentum enough to burst through the plowed snow on the shoulder's edge. All told, I was off the road for less than a minute, but my knuckles were white for several hours more. :-)
