The night before his visit, we heard that Obama would be coming to the University of Oregon. On the news we saw them setting up the outdoor stage in front of the Knight Library. He was due to arrive at 7:45 PM Friday, and gates were going to open at 5:45. This was incredible luck -- he was coming back to Eugene at a time when I could go see him without missing work! I could leave school after my last class, and we could arrive to get in line a couple of hours before the gates opened. We had been on our way to France when he came in March, but I heard that people started lining up really early, and not all of the 11,000 people got in. (However, he stopped and addressed the people outside, and spoke to them for about 15 minutes.)
Anyway, Joy and I had agreed that if Obama ever came to Oregon we would try to go together. She did see him in Salem in March, but we couldn’t go together at that time, so I called her as soon as I heard about this visit to Eugene. She said she’d talk with her husband and would call me back after dinner. When she did, she said that her husband wasn’t coming, but another friend from our elementary school, Carol P., wanted to drive down with her. I haven’t seen Carol since 6th grade. So this added another fascinating dimension to an already amazing episode about to unfold.
I have a little bit of hand-shaking history with previous presidential candidates.
I am proud to say that I was fortunate to shake Bobby Kennedy’s hand when he came to Sunset High School in 1968. I wasn’t yet old enough to vote, but I was passionately interested in the election that year. I will never forget it.
By mere chance, I was able to shake Bill Clinton’s hand at the Eugene airport in 1992. It was a small crowd and Heather was four. He looked me directly in the eye and he was very intense. He is a tall man, but he was dwarfed by four very black secret service agents towering above and tightly encircling him, penetrating the crowd intently with their gaze. The whole experience was very intense and I’m glad to have been there. But I can’t say I am proud to have shaken Bill Clinton’s hand.
But I didn’t expect to have a chance to shake Obama’s hand. I was grateful that I would have the opportunity to see him in person, but I did not expect to be able to get close.
Joy and I agreed to keep in touch by cell phone and find each other once they got here. She and Carol aren’t familiar with Eugene or the UO campus. She said that they would leave in time to find us in line around 5:30. It thought it was cool they were coming down, but I frankly thought it would be a miracle if we found each other in the crowd. So I went into this, thinking it best just to go with the flow, and I had no expectations of everything meshing.
Amazing things..
• Spring sunshine, lilac-scented air, skies pure blue, shirt sleeve weather.
• At 3:45 PM when we arrived downtown, we noticed no unusually heavy traffic. It was easy to find a parking place in a neighborhood about five blocks from campus.
• All the streets were marked with 2-hour parking limits, but no meters. The limit expired at 6:00 PM, 2 hours and 15 minutes away. We were discussing whether to risk getting a ticket for the extra 15 minutes. I advocated for the risk – wasn’t seeing Obama worth a $10 ticket? Besides, I was pretty sure that all the police in town would be occupied at the rally and other events on campus. Just as we were getting out of the car, the meter maid approached in her little cart. Daniel asked her if we would get a ticket if we left the car. She grinned and said, “No problem, you’re fine!” She wasn’t chalking the tires on this round; she was just checking for chalk marks. It must have been her last time through and she was on her way to the rally, too (I’m guessing).
• We walked up 13th Street and approaching campus we could see the colorful booths of the international street fair. One block in to campus, we saw a row of white canopies with security gates set up between Condon and Chaplain Halls, directly across from Lillis Business complex. Uniformed men and women were working to set up the gates, arranging the long black trunks they had been packed in and getting organized. But where were the crowds of people we expected?
• Other than the security gates, the overall atmosphere was a typical spring day on the university campus. Technicolor blue sky, verdant green lawns, rainbow tie-dye blowing in the gentle breeze at the street fair. It was like a scene straight out of the movie, “Across the Universe.” Students sprawled on grassy lawns, alone or in groups, reading, studying, talking on cell phones. Everything seemed so laid back, typical Eugene-style. And this was where Obama was due to arrive in less than four hours? We looked around in disbelief, then settled down in the sunshine on the grass. Heather went off to browse the street fair. After teaching on my feet all day, it felt wonderful to rest my achy back on soft grass, my head in Daniel’s lap. I almost drifted off to sleep in the warm sunshine. Heather returned with a vegetarian burrito. It felt like a moment made in heaven.
• Eventually a short rotund uniformed policewoman approached, telling us that she had been instructed to clear the lawn. She directed us to go to the line, which was forming at the EMU (student union), a couple of blocks away. A few people got up and walked off in the direction of the EMU. We thought, oh well, it was too good to be true, and started to follow. But after speaking with one or two groups on the grass, the police woman stationed herself in front of the gates and did not move. Several groups of people remained on the grass. I walked over and asked her what their plan was, and she shrugged and said, “I was just told to clear this area,” indicating the patch of grass in front of the gates.
• Awhile later, a young man with a staff badge stood up on a stump and announced in a loud voice that everyone needed to clear the lawn and go to the line. “There are still some good places in line! You should go there now and secure your spot!” His urgency prodded a few more lollygaggers to jump up off the lawn and hurry down in the direction of the EMU.
• It was so pleasant hanging out on the lawn that I just did not want to give that up to go stand in a crowded line of people several blocks away. Even if it did mean getting a spot further back in line, I was willing to risk that. The more I looked around, the more I doubted they would be able to clear the street or block people from entering from 13th St. We walked a ways toward the EMU, and we asked various officials – secret servicemen, city policemen on bikes and campaign staffers – what the plan was. We calculated how they might be planning to bring the line through to the gates. We watched a few of the vendors slowly packing up their wares. By 5:00 most of the booths were still standing, people were still browsing and shopping and it was clear that there was no way they would be able to block the street. And everyone we spoke to said there were no plans to do that. The only place they were keeping cleared was the lawn in front of the security gates.
• I had been giving cell phone updates to Joy and Carol, who were on the road. They would need to find a place to park, and then find us on campus. To direct them to 13th St. was easy. It would have been harder to explain how to get to the EMU to find us in a long line. We decided to take our chances. We found a comfortable spot on a wall in front of Condon Hall and waited.
• We saw three Obama supporters wearing home made t-shirts printed with OBAMA vs HILLARY – BROs B4 HOs. Not something I would wear on a t-shirt, but I asked if I could take their picture. They were chipper and friendly, and funny! They said they would not get near enough for a photo with Obama in those shirts, because they didn’t want the media to grab it and accuse him of endorsing the slogan. This struck me as surprisingly insightful.
• I got a call that Joy and Carol had arrived in Eugene. They had mistakenly taken the wrong exit, but they found their way across the Ferry Street Bridge. I directed them to the neighborhood where we had parked, they found a spot and were already walking toward us on 13th St. by 5:30. Thus, they met up with us two minutes before the gates opened! We had time for hasty hugs and greetings.. and then..
• We walked right up without a fuss and passed through security. They searched everything, but they let Carol pass with her bag of provisions. I didn’t expect that. Carol and Joy needed to find a restroom, so we split up.
• Daniel, Heather and I went to the front of the stage. But Daniel went off to the left over on the side, standing at a bike rack rail barricade. He motioned me over, saying that the secret service guy guarding the door to the adjoining Art Museum told him that Obama would be coming out through those doors, and he would shake hands with the crowd right there before going up on the stage. So that’s where we positioned ourselves. We still had 2 hours to wait.
• Joy and Carol arrived just minutes later (I forgot to ask where they had found a bathroom). Joy had brought her deck of cards with bizarre pictures of GW Bush dressed in drag and morphed versions of dogs. It was a distracting set of cards to play gin rummy with, but we sat on the warm cement and played a round of cards as people gathered behind us. It was fun.. but we couldn’t concentrate. Every once in awhile Joy would put down a card and interject, “Oh look, he’s a dog on that one,” which caused me to giggle at the silliness of it all. I didn’t know when the game was supposed to end.. so I played past when I should have stopped!
• It was fascinating to watch the people, and all the goings-on around us. Finally we gave up on the card game and stood up.
• A golden-curlylocks toddler suddenly pulled down his pants and started to take a tinkle in the middle of the lawn. His mother dashed across, shooing him to another place on the other side of the sidewalk, so he could leave his pee in the Museum garden. We were laughing like crazy, and of course I whipped out my camera, not quite catching the funniest moment before mom intervened.
• The bleachers behind the stage were gradually being filled with people, directed by a staffer who had been pulling supporters from the line at the EMU. He arranged them according to how they would show up on TV behind the stage. It was a multicultural, multiage mix of men and women. Many were white middle-aged women, stereotypical Hillary voters. (I had actually joked about carrying a sign that said “White Middle-Aged Woman for Obama” but I wouldn’t actually do it.. I am so against these generalizations about how people will vote based on their demographic. That’s like trying to guess how people think based on how they look. It’s ridiculous.)
• Speaking of signs, they passed out mass-produced signs to the audience that said “CHANGE WE CAN BELIEVE IN” and the bleacher people were given hand-painted signs with various slogans. It was supposed to look like they were home made, but they were evidently painted by the same person with different colors of paint. Actually I didn’t see a single home made sign. I think this rally was on too short notice.
• A variety of music genres was blasting from huge speakers. Some folk, rock, pop, old and new, but all of it upbeat and inspirational. It set a happy tone and I watched some of the young people mouth the words to songs I had never heard. Other songs were familiar, ones I knew well enough to sing along with.
• Watching the secret service men held its own drama. They were dressed in black suits and white shirts, of course. Their shoes were polished to a high gloss. They wore characteristic gold lapel pins. Earlier some were wearing sun glasses like the Blues Brothers. They had earpieces attached to wires that went down into their coats. I saw one man speak into his hand, but I didn’t see a mic. It looked like he was speaking directly into the knuckle of his thumb. One man in particular looked the stereotype of the military man: bristly brush crew-cut, jutting chin, and muscle-built stature. Overall, their faces remained serious, but most didn’t appear to be under high tension.
• At one point, another secret service agent approached that man and said something into his ear. Suddenly the serious demeanor broke into a huge grin. The two men began taking off their ties! They folded them meticulously and tucked them in a pocket inside their jackets. They unbuttoned their collars and we watched as these same actions were repeated by all the secret service agents on the scene. This was just cracking me up! I mean.. they were supposed to start to appear casual (this is Oregon after all!) but even that was a formalized ritual that obviously came in the form of an order from a superior officer!
• All this time a very small elf-like girl-person had been weaseling her way up behind us. She was exactly half my height. She persistently pushed at our backs, determined to secure a spot in front. Eventually I turned to her and asked her to give me a little space. I told her, “When he comes out, I’m going to let you stand here, so don’t worry.” After that, she moved back a little, and we made room for her between us. She did not speak English, but apparently understood what was said to her. She had a pen and tablet ready for an autograph and her tiny hands handled her camera with dexterity. I noticed that the digital menu was in Asian characters; I think she was Korean. At first I thought she was a very small college student, but at the end of the rally, after she told me “Thank you” I asked her age. I could barely understand, and had to ask her to repeat. She replied, “ee-reb-en.” (11)
• Soon the nervous and excited girl who is the UO student body president, came onstage, then Ernie Kent, then Peter DeFazio. Each gave a very brief speech. I kept watching the glass doors, planning how I would take photos. I decided to put the camera on video setting so that I wouldn’t have to set up camera shots while trying to shake Obama’s hand. I held the camera in my left hand, so I could shake hands with my right.
• Behind the glass doors I could see flashes of Obama’s smile. He’d peek out at the crowd, and he was laughing.. you could tell that he was having a great time!
• Finally he came out. As we had been told, he began by going through the crowd where we were standing, both hands outreached, shaking as many hands as possible. I didn’t know it, but Daniel had it planned what he wanted to say. He later told me that Obama looked him right in the eye when Daniel said, “Remember the plug-in hybrid – it’s the future.” And Obama nodded and told him, “I won’t forget.”
• The rest is history. He gave his speech as the twilight became night. The sky indigo blue. The crowd loving the fact that we finally have an American hero, someone willing to sacrifice for the love of this country and its people. Someone who believes in the power of change.
It was a perfectly magical evening.
Bienvenue chez moi. Lisez, regardez, et écrivez-moi! Amusez-vous! Welcome to my blog. Read, look, and write to me! Have fun!
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