and headed out for Exeter High School on Epping Road. Epping Road is not, however, located in the TOWN of Epping, as my illustrious driver was convinced. Once we arrived at the event, we were given very little instructions on where to go, what to do, etc. so our kids pretty much improvised. We signed up a few supporters for a while and then an advance person had us form a “human chain” to funnel people into the gym where Barack would be speaking from. 
It really was amazing how many people were there and how early they showed up to watch him speak. People were waiting there almost two hours before the doors opened, and when we finally had to close off the lobby, people waited for more than an hour in the 30 degree weather not complaining, as far as I could tell. 
nteers when they weren’t allowed in, but no one argued with me. Since Marc and I had been late, we weren’t given volunteer passes, but we were dressed nicely, so people assumed we were staff – it was fantastic. I suppose, with the minor exception of a South African woman who was mad because I couldn’t get her a moment alone with the Senator – she was pretty irritating and quite rude to me. Other than that, the crowd was pretty nice and not a single person in the event heckled the Senator (amazing for a political rally). I was laughing, because a few of the songs that were played were songs that were played at the Do
le rallies that I had attended so many years ago – they put on one song that I can still picture Jack Kemp tossing around a football to. The speech was beyond incredible; Obama just has this innate ability to speak to every single person in the room like they are the only person in the room. He just says so many things that make so much sense to me and that I agree with so much. Phenomenal.
plans. Our friend Ryan hadn’t ever seen Obama before, so he jumped ship on his volunteer duties and went to the front of the room (which I totally would of done had I been in his position) and got to shake Obama’s hand after the event, which was pretty cool. Him, his friend Anthony, Marc, and I went on a quick trip to Exeter for lunch after the event – we attempted to go to the Loaf and Ladle, a local sandwich an
d soup favourite, but we wound up going to Me & Ollies, which reminded me of a non-commercial Panara. I had this amazing turkey and Havarti sandwich – I want to go back! While we were there, I got a call from back at the office saying that the state rep that I had canvassed with yesterday was at the office and ready to go out again, so we hurried back so that I could take her out again.
hat she’s doing, which really shows when she talks with people about Obama. The way the houses are laid out here, some are a quarter mile off the beaten path, house number 87 might be somehow next to house 75, and front doors probably won’t have a snow plowed path, so it’s pretty different than the neatly laid out neighborhoods we’re used to in Kansas. Additionally, to increase the difficulty factor by seven, we weren’t hitting every house, so we might stop at houses 1, 19, 20 and 32 on a street. What we wound up doing was probably hilarious to any wildlife watching the whole process – I would drop one woman off with the assignment to do one house, drop the second woman off to do two houses, pick up the first woman, drive her to house four, pick up the second woman and drive her to house five, etc – kind of like a gigantic whipstitch. It worked out really well though – we were able to cover a bunch of houses pretty quickly that way. Speaking of wildlife, I got to see a wild vole today – bet you’ve never heard of that before! (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vole)
- Amanda
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