Campaign Worker

This is a first for me: knocking on doors, "cold calls," to pitch for my candidate. I agreed to do so on two days for four hours each. Today, Saturday, was my first stint, and I've been anxious about it for days. I had two medical procedures this week (one up my nose and one up my anus) and they left me rather wrung out and I've had trouble walking because of a heel spur, and I am old and out of shape. In other words, I just didn't know if I would be able to do it today or not. Besides that, would I encounter hostility? Insults? Tirades? Even threats?

I woke very early this morning as I usually do when something is coming up and it's brewing inside me but I managed to get back to sleep until almost nine. I got ready and showed up at the home of a fellow Peace Corps Volunteer, Emeka (this one second generation -- he was born in Nigeria to parents who were both PCVs and given an Ibo name), where I met with a handful of volunteers. I knew Emeka and his wife Jill; Bert, who is also a returned PCV; Bert's wife, Alice, who I worked with at the local newspaper nearly forty years ago and also at the state hospital for several years; and Jerry Y., a master librarian. We met on the upstairs screened back porch of Emeka and Jill's house on West Third Street, with Springdale Cemetery and the green hills to the north as a view. It was breezy and had rained last night and at the moment my khaki cotton twill Chicago commuters' jacket with a short-sleeved shirt felt good. All of those I mentioned and others, including a woman of 81, chattered excitedly as we gathered and had coffee before work. One lady said some very religious people were going to vote against Baron Hill because he had endorsed Barack Obama. Tsk, tsk.

A young woman named Lauren, who is to graduate this year from Indiana University of Pennsylvania, who worked as a volunteer in the Keystone State, and who has been promoted to a paid worker, gave us our walking beats, with specific names and addresses. My assignment was in the vicinity of Wal-Mart, in apartments on Ovo Drive (in back of Head Start) and in the subsidized Windridge apartments, and also on Bellaire, Crestwood, and Cedarwood Drives, all in upper Madison.

I put a round Obama sticker on my shirt and headed off hopefully in my 265K beater with the Obama '08 magnets on the trunk and sans one hubcap (owing to the big doe who hit me a couple of months ago). Might pass for a non-elitist except for the car's Japanese provenance and its excellent gas mileage. (Settle down!)

First person I saw in the Ovo Drive apartment compound was a young hero getting out of a Jeep Cherokee. I asked him for directions and then, "Are you registered?" He said he wasn't because of the "fools," clarifying he meant the two Democratic candidates. He said he is a Republican and would vote for McCain. OK. Will this be hard going?

I found the first apartment and no one was at home. Then the second: a young woman, neatly attired, perhaps a little overly made up (unneeded given her lovely face) promptly answered, a little girl by her side. She said she was registered and was going to vote for Obama, smiling sweetly and reassuringly. Bingo! I told her she was the very first person I'd ever contacted as a campaign volunteer. Which was true. (Oh right. An old coot like you? You've been doing this for 200 years. Or so I speculate she was thinking.)

In these hardscrabble housing places I found that many people were not at home and many had moved. Some buildings were dirtier than others; stair handrails were sticky, floors grimy and littered. Most who answered were in their twenties and early thirties, mostly women. One young man answered from behind the door, "Who is it?" I laughed and said, "I'm not a cop. Or a salesman or a bill collector." He opened the door and said, "How can I help you?" I stated my business and gave him the Obama flyer, although he was not the person on my list. She didn't live there anymore.

I knocked on every door on the list and either met somebody and pitched to them or marked "not at home" on my sheet. I forgot to leave flyers at the places where I got no answer. I finished just before noon, listening at length to a sixtyish woman who launched a diatribe about the immorality of the Clintons and "this black-white thing with Obama." I asked her (just a hint of challenge in my voice) what she meant by the "black-white thing." But I knew what she meant. I said that she had a clear choice in McCain. We'd always had white men in the office and she could vote for a white man again. Happily I told her I had to meet somebody for lunch and got the hell out of there. I flashed a phony smile as I turned on my heel and left. Bitch.

At Frisch's, over lunch Jerry Y. and I discussed our excellent adventures of the morning. He'd gotten into all kinds of discussions about gay people and whether Barack was a Muslim (thanks for the "madrassa" shit, Sean Hannity et al.) and all kinds of convoluted stuff. He said as a librarian, he was inclined to give people answers when they asked questions. Except that as a psychologist (erstwhile), I am aware that sometimes people aren't really asking questions for which they are seeking information but instead asking questions they think they already know the answers to in order to confront you. We had a good lunch and good fellowship and went back out for two more hours.

This time I went to the other side of Michigan Road, where individual family dwellings are, and puzzled out the house-numbering of the three streets of Bellaire, Cedarwood, and Crestwood, parking the car and walking. The sun had steadily fought its way out of the clouds and it was warm and pretty. People working and sitting outside were friendly. My heel is a little sore now but not as bad as it has been. It's getting better. I probably saw 35 people all day and fewer than ten said they were Obama supporters, yet I regard that as really worthwhile: in baseball, batting .300 is good. Might even win you the title some years.

I saw a man my age who has been a teacher at Shawe and who tragically lost a leg (both legs?) to cancer and reminded him we had played baseball under the bridge over fifty years ago. Of the Shawe kids, I said, "They really love you, Jim." And I did too. And he is going to vote for Obama! So is his son, who lives in Nap Town and was there for the weekend. (The son, incidentally, favors one of my favorite comedians, Chris Elliott, though I doubt he'd be flattered).

Returned to "campaign headquarters" at Emeka's, where folks were unwinding and finishing up lunches of delicious chicken. I had one piece and a fruit jar of water and it was a great second lunch. I hadn't completed my list and promised to get back to it on Monday, and will try to phone people I couldn't reach in person.

It occurred to me as I was making my rounds in the morning that I felt like I was on something of a religious quest, and I said the best prayer I could for what I would like to see happen and what I believe would be best for our nation and the world to happen.

I left Emeka's and came home and tried to crash but couldn't. Tonight we went to Hanover College to meet with Baron Hill and Lee Hamilton, who have both endorsed Obama. They spoke confidently of this good young man as presidential, "commander in chief and leader of the free world," to use Lee's words. Baron was the most eloquent I have ever heard him, and I told him so. He beamed. Lee said that Obama has been dismissed by his opponents for "just words," but Lee said that all our good presidents were notable for their uplifting words as well as their deeds. (Writing now, it occurs to me that there's satire pointing up truths in Letterman's "Great Moments in Presidential Speeches.")

Rosie and I left there and ate too much pizza* and came home.

It's been a good day. Amen.

*Oh yes! While we were at the pizza joint the table next to us filled up with 30-something guys. "Medium," a silly drama about a clairvoyant who is always sitting bolt upright in bed waking from some portentous nightmare, was on the boob tube. One of the guys went to the TV and started surfing, looking for what turned out to be a pro BB game (Orlando-Detroit?). While he was going through 40 channels or so, he caught -- you guessed it -- the Reverend Jeremiah Wright in his dashiki chopping the air and swearing "God damn America!" from the pulpit. This was Saturday night at nine o'clock.

Will it never die?

Not until Barack finishes his second term in 2017!

In the meantime, thank God for TV remotes! Thank God for classical music and walks in the fresh air and sunshine, and good conversation and all our other blessings.

Amen.