Accidental Blogger

(Cross-posted from Fluff’ n’ Stuff)

I nearly talked myself out of it
quite successfully. I hate crowds and queues, I get migraines when I
have to be in enclosed spaces for more than a couple of hours, couldn’t
manage the timing with the kids getting back from school, they were
going to cover the event on live television and everyone know that you
get a better view on HDTV anyway, so I would be better off watching it
at home. And yet, barely four
hours later, I was waiting with my son in midst of a crowd of about 13, 000
screaming and adoring fans of …Barack Obama the political rockstar.

The pressure started piling on the day before:

"Sujatha —
I’m coming to Pittsburgh today, Monday, October 27th.
I’ll be holding a rally at Mellon Arena and talking to folks about what we can do together to change this country.
See the details below and RSVP for the event:
http://pa.barackobama.com/PittsburghChange

Hope to see you there,
Barack"

With
this personal email request, how could I be so hard-hearted as to ignore the
invitation? I dawdled over the thought for about 5 seconds before my
left-brain kicked in and told me "Not on your migrainy head-head-head!"
Next,
a couple of hours later, a phone call from an activist in our
township. He was assembling a carpooling, train-riding contingent to
attend the rally, planning to leave at 1 pm to get to the opening of
gates at 3 pm. I told him, "I’d love to, but can’t- I get migraines in
crowded situations!" He ‘tsked’ his disappointment.
The next
morning, I plodded away to contribute my once-weekly volunteer hours in
local Obama campaign field office. As I pecked away at the computer
terminal there, Cindy popped by, sliding me a couple of blue tickets
that would guarantee the holders ‘VIP seating’, whatever that meant. I
wasn’t going to fall for this. I cast around to see if there was
anybody else who might like my tickets, and mused on whether I should
hawk them around my neighborhood or pass them on to the activist acquaintance.
I got home
and showed my tickets to my husband and he promptly took over planning
how I was going to leave with my son as soon as he got home from school. He
didn’t fall for my migraine protestations and bamboozled me into a plan
that might actually be workable, assuming that the average time to
enter the Mellon arena wasn’t four hours waiting in line. We left the
house as soon as my daughter got home from her school, shoehorning her into the
van with a bag of snacks, as we raced to beat the traffic.
45
minutes later, my son and I jumped off the van, walked up to the end of the
queue which appeared to snake around the building, only to be told that
we were in the wrong ‘short’ queue for blue-ticket volunteers. Ha, I
waved my tickets triumphantly and stayed in line. We waltzed through
security and were seated in under half an hour(!!??!!) in a prime position to take reasonably good photographs. (I
feel faintly guilty admitting how easy it was, considering that some of
the audience had been parked in line since 7 am in the morning.)
The
atmosphere was joyful and enthusiastic, some bored members of the
audience taking it upon themselves to exercise all those stiff
backsides parked in the chairs by ‘doing the wave’. We tired of it
after the third round.
The large gentleman directly in front of me
could have easily auditioned for a rap video, and was loudly insistent
in exchanging his ‘Change we need’ sign for one that said ‘Veterans for
Obama’. "I am a veteran", he shouted over the noise to the volunteers
handing out the signs. We got handed tiny little American flags, since
we didn’t care to haggle for the signs.
With remarkable timeliness,
the events of the evening were started off at 5 pm with a fairly
inclusive non-denominational prayer by Sr. MaryAnn Something, praying
for peace upon the world, the country and the candidate and all and
sundry, followed by loud echoes of her Amen, reminding me of the days
when I was called upon to sing a suitable shloka at the start of IEEE
conferences on electrical engineering papers (Don’t ask why an
engineering conference needed a starting prayer!). I was tempted to
shout ‘Ameen’ or ‘Tathaastu’, but missed the moment by a millisecond.
Then,
a field organizer in a taupe suit took the stage to lead the Pledge of
Allegiance, to which I mumbled along- the words aren’t second nature to
me as a relatively newly minted US citizen (only 4 years), unlike the
rest of the audience. A lady in red came up to sing the Star Spangled
Banner, and was given a background chorus by the audience as she sang.
Very patriotically inspiring, like American flag lapel pins ;)
Next,
the crowd howled its approval as the campaign field director, followed
by governor Ed Rendell, senator Casey and congressman Dolan took the
stage, all making brief speeches patting the campaign on its back as a
prelude to the main act. I didn’t hear or pay attention to what they
were saying, just primed my camera for the right zoom as I remarked
with annoyance that Mr.Veteran had decided to stand up, blocking my
view of the podium unless I stood too.
A couple of toe-tapping but
pounding-the-brains-bass-boosted songs later (did I detect a tiny
protest starting in my head, a glimmer of headache to be?), the whole
crowd started their shouts of approval as ….Pittsburgh Steelers owner
Dan Rooney strode on stage. ‘Not more blathering’, I thought as I sank
back to the seat, a moment too early, as Sen. Obama ran on stage from
another side, waving to the crowd. Holy cannoli! I missed clicking the
moment when Rooney handed him a Steeler’s jersey with ‘Obama 08’ in
huge letters. Never mind,I thought, there will be other photo ops.

Obama
started off with some routine thanks to the organisers, other politicos
present and then launched into his well-rehearsed stump speech,
modified with small adlibs and improvisations to play to the Pittsburgh
audience, eliciting approving shouts and extended applause and
sign/flag waving every now and then, occasional boos when mentioning
McCain/Palin, with Obama’s now trademarked "We don’t need those boos,
we just need you to vote."
The speech flowed on with all the
cadences of the accomplished orator, ringing out stentorian, dropping
down to conversational levels occasionally. I gave up looking at the
large screen closeup on the closed circuit screen display hanging above
us and focused my attention on the demeanor and body language of the
senator as he stood at the podium. Determined
as I was not to be impressed, I did feel a prickling at the back of my
eyes as tears threatened to flow when he said something about
immigrants moving into America trying to make a better future for their
kids. I suppose that was the ‘highlight’ of the speech that connected
with me.
Obama’s speech was
less about content (which is talking points cobbled together from a
zillion stump speeches) and more about how he was connecting with the
audience- it almost seemed like a preacher’s challenge in church with a
response from his parishioners at appropriate intervals.
Bingo, it
was like a really big tent, with people of all colors and creeds and
backgrounds, but an evangelical fervor pervaded the air, just like in a
church! At least two skeptics were in the crowd, unwillingly drawn into
this manic response, waving our flags rather weakly when prompted by
the crowd, but clapping with moderate enthusiasm when a non-talking
point statement adlibbed its way into the speech. My son was soaking in the
atmosphere and impressions- "This is the last chance I may have to see
Obama in person as a candidate- he could be the next president, or not!"
So,
it was as a tired crushed-to-the-bone contingent that we returned home,
surrounded by joking cheerful party acolytes on the train home. Regular
commuters handled the extra rush with good humor, squeezing their way
to the exits with polite "Make way please!"s. We got a seat halfway
back and sank into them gratefully. My son declared "Today is a mixed bag,
rather than being totally wonderful! I enjoyed the rally, but not the
train ride home."
I smiled – the poor kid didn’t know what a real
crowd meant, having never sat between two fishwives and their largely
empty baskets at the end of a busy day, among the other crowd on a
KSRTC bus. And he was complaining about a commuter squeeze on a train
after a rally that had drawn 15,000 people by the final counts?
It’s all for the good. Now, if he could only vote, which he can’t for another 4 years at least.
Who knows, maybe my son will get a chance to decide if we should re-elect a President Obama or not!