So Friday was fun. Come midnight an Indian pow-wow took place in Mac Court (MacArthur Basketball Court at UofO for those who aren’t in the know), Friday was also the last of our campus semi-annual Street Faire (which I’ll talk about more in my next post), and biggest of all- Obama was coming to town.
Here was the dilemma for me. I had to clock on for work at 5:30 (a three hour shift at one of the school cafeterias- not hard work and not long, but I get a free meal every shift and I like the people), and the Obama rally started seating at 5:45. I got off work at (the latest) 8:30, and he’d begun to speak at 7:30. There was no way I would get to see the candidate that I have every intention of voting for as my president.
The line was intense. The sign may say “Do not enter” for vehilcles, but there were hundreds of human bodies that I could see as I walked just to my dorm, and I knew that thousands more were behind them and heading toward the throng. They had blankets, books, and poker cards at the ready to entertain themselves for the next few hours- and they had definitely started gathering several hours ahead of time.
The security was also fitting for a presidential candidate: a straight line of courthouse/airline worthy security checkpoints, each manned with the Secret Service Police and other officials. After the event had started, they penned all those who entered into a metal fenced area, after which there was a line of officers patrolling the flock, then another fence behind them. Those who came late had to watch from afar. Made sense, of course- couldn’t let knives/guns/bombs close to the stage.
So I had a terrible time at work, depressed that I’d missed Obama, and short of staff - myself and someone who had never done the work station before were together, and the language barrier of trying to explain things to a Hong Kong kid was…less than stellar. You know what it’s like when someone tries with all their might to help you, but they only make things more complicated. You just smile and thank them all the same. Anywho. Myself and another coworker rushed off as soon as we’d clocked out at about 8:15, hoping that it might still be going.
And was it. We were a few blocks still off the main campus when I heard the boom of loudspeakers, clear as day from hundreds of feet away. He was still going strong (later I heard that the last part of his performance was the best anyway). I took a while trying to get anything that even resembled a view, moving to the edge of the hundreds gated out to look into the main crowd…
…then I wandered like a hungry jackal to the other end, convinced that there was no way I was going to see the man. Finally I got up on a little bit of raised ground beneath a tree where the roots had pushed up the soil, and there he was- pacing on stage, laughing loud and joking. It was too dark and faaaaar too distant to get a good picture, but hey, at least I tried.
He discussed fair trade agreements, the price of oil, being proud when he had refused to personally respond to his opponents and regretful of when he’d taken a swing, said we need to raise the salary of schoolteachers, and praised his mother for raising him well after at age two his father left them and she had to at times depend on Food Stamps. He felt like real America- certainly at least the type of person that Oregon wanted to hear from. And he wasn’t just coming to my campus- his website showed three or more other locations in the state that he was to visit in the next couple days. It was so big and so sudden that even one of my professors had to at the last minute send out an email saying she couldn’t come to her office on her day off to drop off our papers — because the campaign had been given her parking spot.
It was certainly a fun event- and Obama continued speaking until nearly 9pm, a full hour and a half after he’d begun. He was coughing from an obvious dry throat long before he stepped down from the stage. It was riveting. I hope the man wins, because he certainly knows how to make a girl swoon.