On Thursday, October 30, 2008 I witnessed history. I was so lucky to be able to attend a Barack Obama rally in Columbia, Missouri on the MU campus in the Mel Carnahan Quad. That event left me reeling, in many ways. I wish I was a more eloquent writer, so I could really express how I felt that night and how I am still feeling today. But I'm going to try.
Just to give you a quick run-down of our afternoon, here's how it went. First, as SOON as school was out, I got quickly to Mom's house. Ashley and mom were waiting for me, and we headed up to the Truman campus. We had planned on following the two buses leaving from Truman, since we didn't really know where we were going. While we were there we were waiting and taking pictures. Ashley talked to a friend of ours who was helping to organize the buses, and she told Ashley that there were still seats on the bus. Ashley decided to join the TSU students and rode down with them. Mom and I followed in Mom's car.
When we got there, we were really lucky to get a parking spot in the nearest parking garage on the ground floor, woohoo!!! Then we joined the TSU peeps who were gathered by the garage waiting for their "tickets." We were really confused about the whole ticket idea. Everything we read about the rally said "No tickets needed" so we didn't really know what good tickets were going to be to us. While I ran back to the car to get my camera, the tickets were passed out. Ashley begged the girl to give Mom a ticket. Since we weren't on the bus, the girl didn't really want to give her a ticket (I guess they were supposed to be for bus riders only). Then she told mom, "I'll give you one since you're a mom." Mom thanked her profusely and then sheepishly said, "My other daughter ran back to the car, can I have one for her too? Please?" And she gave us one!!!
So, yellow tickets in hand we joined the line. We really had no clue what the tickets were going to get us. But we just obediently waited, and waited, and waited. We stood in that line for about 2 hours and 45 minutes. All the while we were hearing about yellow tickets, blue tickets and general admission lines. We knew that they called the yellow tickets "VIP Tickets" and the blue tickets were like "VVIP Tickets." But we still weren't convinced that we were going to get anything special out of the deal. However, waiting in line was about all we could do at that point.
7:30 Finally arrived and our line started moving. That was the time that the "gates opened." Barack wasn't scheduled to speak for another 2 hours; at 9:3o. The excitement began to build as we started moving faster and faster and we realized that the big white tents ahead of us were the security checkpoints. They began to prep us for security by telling us we had to have everything out of our pockets and all electronics turned on. We went through the metal detectors, they searched mom's purse and looked at all our electronics and we were FREE!!!
We began to notice as we had gotten closer to security, that basically as soon as we made it through the security checkpoint that we would just be going as fast as we could towards the rally point....some people were flat out running. So we took off quickly and soon we were told where to go if we had yellow or blue tickets. We followed the signs and people shouting "Yellow Ticket People HERE!" As we came up the hill we saw the podium, RIGHT IN FRONT OF US!!! We began to realize that those yellow tickets were indeed something special. The people with yellow tickets made up the crowd of people directly in front of Barack on the ground. We quickly found a good spot and settled in for a long wait. We were about 40-ish feet directly in front of the podium!! I know that we all looked like kids in a candy store for the first time ever. We were just gushing with excitement, gleaming grins on all of our faces.
Next, it was hurry up and wait time again. As soon as we claimed our spot, with people crowding in on all sides of us, I began to realize how long we would be standing in such close proximity to these people. 2 hours. That is how much longer we stood. Mom, Ashley and I were separated from one another, but we could still pretty much see each other if we stood on tiptoes and careened our necks around. It was CRAZY the number of people that were there. And I have to say that I have never felt short in my life. But I did feel short that night, there are lots of really tall people in this world.
Pretty soon, people began to file in behind the podium and took seats. We found out later that those were the people with the blue tickets, those "VVIP tickets." We were jealous of them, they got to SIT! Soon after that, a few people came to the podium to speak, several from the MU campus. Next, several political figures from Missouri took the stage to speak and rally the people. (Like we needed any help, the energy was frenetic by about 9:00) You could just feel the people buzzing, pushing, talking, singing, praying, laughing, shouting. It was intense. Susan Montee (MO State Auditor), Robin Carnahan (MO Sec. of State), Judy Baker (MO State Representative candidate), and Jay Nixon (MO Governor candidate) all took to the stage. Jay Nixon finished up and about four minutes later, here came Barack!!!
It was amazing, breathtaking even. I can't even begin to put into words the excitement of all the people that were there that night. He took the stage and it was an uproar of screams, shouts, camera flashes exploding. He talked for about 35-40 minutes. He spoke about all of his platform issues, including the economy, health care, the war, and education (just to name a few). I was especially happy to hear his talk about education. On the way down I was telling my mom that it just seemed like the media doesn't show him talking much about education. I was constantly taking pictures while listening to him talk.
After it was over, there was a push of people trying to get out of the quad and just trying to get away from the throng of people was nearly impossible. We actually snuck through a building so we could use the bathroom (I began worrying at about 7:45 that I wasn't going to be able to make it the rest of the night.....but I did!!) Then we found our car and Ashley boarded the bus and we all headed home. We made it back around 12:30, so all in all not too bad!!
At risk of sounding cheesy, I feel changed. After I went to this rally, it left me wishing I had seen him speak MONTHS ago. His speech and the people around me energized me. Before the rally I was really annoyed with politics in general, especially the local and state issues that surround us daily in Kirksville. It has gotten really ugly in some of them, and I'm so tired of hearing negative ads and mud-slinging. And don't get me wrong, I'm still annoyed about the negative campaigning and the horrible things that I hear daily around me at work and in the media. But I just feel different. I feel like I need to do more and be more informed about the world around me. I am so worried about what is going to happen in this election next Tuesday, that I make myself sick with worry. Our country is not in great shape right now, and I worry that if things aren't changed very soon, that it's only going to get worse. I was also left with a feeling of how important our democracy is, and realized how thankful I am to live in this country where I can vote and express my opinions.
I don't think it's a surprise to most reading this (is ANYONE even going to read it?) that I will be voting for Barack Obama. Most of his ideals are my ideals. He has some great plans for our country. Do I think he'll be perfect? I don't know. But of course he can't be any worse than what we already have. I was touched with how humble he seems to be, and how serious and touching his rally was. At one point when he mentioned John McCain and one of his policy ideas (the topic escapes me right now), the crowd erupted into groans of disapproval and some people started booing. Barack said, "Don't boo, just vote." I was impressed with that. And after that, it was like the crowd was listening, they didn't boo again, maybe a few groans here and there, but no outright booing.
He was inspirational. It was amazing to see him in person and to see how his words inspired people of all backgrounds. The crowd was huge! I don't honestly know the numbers and can't seem to find much online, but I think one number I heard was 40,000 people attended that rally. Amazing.
The pictures below begin with us in KV, waiting to leave behind the buses.
This is the line that we waited in.
One of my closest friends died almost four years ago. Today would have been her 26th birthday. I find myself thinking about Holly very frequently, in fact I don't think a day passes that I don't think about her or something happens that triggers a memory of her. Her life was too short. I wonder what she would be doing today if she were still alive. No doubt still loving life, laughing all the time, and living in the fast lane. She was such a wonderful, heartfelt person, always had a smile for a friend, and very rarely met someone that didn't instantly fall in love with her charisma and charm.
We almost had the beach to ourselves, it was SO nice. Donia and I decided to ride the paddle boat early-on in case they were hard to come by later in the day.
Since the resort was all-inclusive, all our alcohol was included in the price. We ALL pretty much had two drinks in our hand all day. They were so yummy. Most of the pictures we took for the day showed us holding up our drinks, we just had to show that we were getting our money's worth, 
Then we headed back up to our balcony and watched them from above. People actually continued to throw money down to them, and they ran around catching and scooping it up:
Jamaica was such a 
