The boys outside the house on Sumac Street seemed just a little out of control. One rode a bike, darting in between parked cars and dangerously close to the strollers on the block. The smaller one kept pointing his gun...obviously a toy one...at those same strollers. No one really seemed to notice but me.
I walked towards the house and the boy on the bike asked what I was doing. "Talking to people about President Obama," I answered. "You know, the election. Are you going to vote for him?"
"I'm not old enough," he said. "But my mom is. Come in the house and talk to her." He rushed ahead of me and opened the screen door and went inside, motioning for me to follow. I came to the door and figured I really ought to wait there for his mom. The people of Philadelphia had been plenty friendly to me, but maybe not so friendly that I could enter a home without an adult's invitation. The smaller boy came over and pointed his gun at me. "Are you going to shoot me?" He laughed, changed his aim, pulled the trigger and shot a plastic ball through the open door.
Their mom picked up the ball, tossed it outside and came to the door. She looked a little out of sorts, a little disheveled, like her son had just awakened her. She also had tatoos running up and down both arms and across the top part of her chest. I got a bad feeling. I didn't think my usual charm would go over well with her. I was not expecting this to be a very good discussion. I anticipated that this would be a brief one. I had the thought that, like her oldest, she was probably a biker.
I figured I'd be taking one for the team. But at least I'd be able to mark her off the list of the 120 doors I was supposed to knock on.
I introduced myself and asked if she had a couple of minutes to chat about the Presidential election. I didn't think that she'd be particularly interested. I was wrong. She was an Obama supporter. I asked what issues particularly interested her. "Obamacare and education," she replied. "I'm raising 2 special needs boys."
Oh. She talked. Her oldest had a mild form of autism. Her youngest had been born with congenital heart defects that had required several surgeries. He also had a learning disability. Medical bills had put her family $30,000 in debt. She was working in a bar at night and in a nursing home by day to pay the pills and start cutting into what she owed. She couldn't get health insurance but expected she'd be able to under Obamacare. "He needs to get reelected so I'll have it."
She railed at the local Republicans who, she said, were hurting the school system and making it more difficult for her son with the learning disability. "The Mayor of Philladelphia is a Republican," I asked, demonstrating my ignorance. She looked crossly at me. "The governor. Too much funding for charter schools." Oh.
The day was getting warmer and I was starting to sweat as I had uncharacteristically worn long pants on a Saturday to avoid looking too casual. She brought me a glass of water as she detailed the various programs she was using in kind of a scatter shot effort to take care of her kids' manyl needs and pay her bills.
It was the best talk of the day. I knew pretty early in it that I'd badly misjudged her. My misperception was based, frankly, on her appearance, the behavior of her kids and her tatooes which, I must admit, kind of scared me. I felt silly. But I took some solace in knowing that sometimes I'm an idiot and this won't be the last time.
I also thought that this woman fits all of Romney's stereotypes as well. There's a good chance she pays no federal income taxes. She takes advantage of every government program that can help her. She unabashedly wants more and will use all of Obamacare once it's fully implemented, after we get him reelected.
To think for a second, however, that this is a person who doesn't take responsibility, who doesn't try as hard as she can, who has a victim mentality is GROSS. A gross distortion. A complete charicature. It shows what an idiot Romney can be. Unlike me, however, he seems blissfully unaware of it.
How we see this woman, how we regard her, how we help her, and, indeed, how we get to know her...beyond the irrelevancies of the tattoos on her arms and what she doesn't pay in federal income tax, is what, I think, discribes the differences between these 2 campaigns and why I keep walking down the streets of Philladelphia.
Saturday, September 22, 2012
Friday, September 21, 2012
THE DAY I ELECTED RICHARD NIXON
I didn't mean to do it. Voting for Richard Nixon, I mean. Three times. All in the same election. But I did.
Similarly, I never expected to be living in Kentucky. Northern Kentucky, right across the Ohio River from Cincinnatti. But I was.
All of this happened because I hated the Vietnam War.
It was 1971 and times were exciting. The Mets, the Jets, the Knicks, my teams, were all recent champions. I was a new college graduate, just passed my 21 birthday. And I was having a fight with my draft board.
They kept trying to draft me. And I kept telling them that I was a Consciencious Objector who refused to serve in the armed forces and would certainly never go to Vietnam. They didn't believe me and I demanded a hearing. There they asked me questions, laughed at my answers and probably concluded that it wasn't worth the effort. They granted me CO status and ordered me to do civilian work in the national interest.
So I joined VISTA...Volunteers In Service To America, a federal program that was the domestic equivalent of the Peace Corps. And that's what brought me to my 2 room apartment on Boone Street, Newport, Kentucky. There I set up a (surprise!) basketball league and a recreation program for kids in public housing. And a program to help people train for their high school equivalency diploma.
And in my spare time I joined the McGovern for President campaign. Shh, don't tell anybody. I wasn't supposed to.
I loved Senator McGovern. Unlike his oppenents, the soft spoken Senator Muskie, the compromised former Vice President Humphry or the hawkish Senator Jackson, McGovern's opposition to the horrible Vietnam War was deep and passionate. Like mine. Much to my surprise he did well in the primaries and I joined his campaign.
The first thing we did was voter registration. To my surprise we registered far more democrats than republicans. After he won the nomination we started to canvass and found a good bit of McGovern support. I was made leader in 5 districts which we thought would go our way. Things looked good!
Then things turned bad. The Democratic convention was so crazy that McGovern didn't give his acceptance speech till 2 in the morning...long after even I had fallen asleep. His VP pick had to resign after word leaked that he'd received electrical shock therapy for depression. Neither Senator Kennedy or several other big name Democrats would accept McGovern's pleas for them to become his new running mate, leaving my guy hanging and looking silly. He also felt he had to withdraw his signature domestic proposal...a negative income tax...because almost no one could understand it. I recall a part of that speech: "A leader who won't change isn't a leader, he's a disaster."
Sadly the campaign had become a disaster. No Democratic leader or candidate in Kentucky would say McGovern's name. At a fundraiser for our Senatorial candidate, the nominee ended his remarks by saying: "Let's support our ticket from the top to the bottom." "Top of the Ticket." That was as close as they'd come to naming the man at the top of our ticket.
Still I worked with all my heart. And we did well. The only disaster WE had was when I called a potential voter named Alex Pigg. I couldn't help it. I asked to speak to Mr. Pigg and couldn't stop laughing! On the plus side I hadn't yet identified myself as a rep from the McGovern campaign.
Talk at campaign headquarters focused on Harry Truman. He had completely fooled the polls so who's to say we couldn't too. If that was our best shot I was not encouraged.
On Election Day I still held on to hope but knew it would take a near miracle. I walked out onto Boone Street very early that morning; I was the Democratic Challenger at one of the polling places as we were on guard against Republican shenanigans. I noticed a light rain fell. RAIN? I became excited. Maybe it was raining all over the country! Maybe the rain would get very hard! And maybe only the most commited of voters...McGovern supporters, of course...would come out! We could win a low turnout election! Oh my gosh!
I got to the poll on, I think, Monmouth Street. The rain had stopped.
There were no Republican shenanigans at the poll. Perhaps I'd scared them off. Still I had work to do. A person came in not knowing how to vote. The election officials there sent me into the booth to help him.
Now I imagine you realize that they shouldn't have done that. You don't send a representative from 1 political party into a voting booth to help an uncertain voter. But that is what they did. So in I went. And asked who he wanted to vote for. To my horror he said: "Nixon." I moved my finger towards the clip next to Nixon's name. I paused. My finger began shaking. I lowered my hand and now my finger was next to the name McGovern. The shaking became a lot worse as I contemplated going against the voter's instructions. I couldn't get myself to do it. But how could I cast a vote for Nixon? I don't know. But I did. His vote (the idiot!) went the way he intended.
It happened two more times that day. Two voters who needed help. Help to vote for Nixon. Each time it was easier to cast the asked for ballot.
At the end of the day, the voting officials had me view the actual vote count. This was important because this was one of our Priority districts. We needed a big win here. And we did win...by 3 votes. My heart fell. A 3 vote win in our priority district where we had focused so much effort. I knew that we had lost.
A while later, at campaign headquarters, I watched on TV as the news anchor announced the first state projected for Nixon...Kentucky, of course. And based in part on my 3 votes!
I've just got to do better for Obama!
Similarly, I never expected to be living in Kentucky. Northern Kentucky, right across the Ohio River from Cincinnatti. But I was.
All of this happened because I hated the Vietnam War.
It was 1971 and times were exciting. The Mets, the Jets, the Knicks, my teams, were all recent champions. I was a new college graduate, just passed my 21 birthday. And I was having a fight with my draft board.
They kept trying to draft me. And I kept telling them that I was a Consciencious Objector who refused to serve in the armed forces and would certainly never go to Vietnam. They didn't believe me and I demanded a hearing. There they asked me questions, laughed at my answers and probably concluded that it wasn't worth the effort. They granted me CO status and ordered me to do civilian work in the national interest.
So I joined VISTA...Volunteers In Service To America, a federal program that was the domestic equivalent of the Peace Corps. And that's what brought me to my 2 room apartment on Boone Street, Newport, Kentucky. There I set up a (surprise!) basketball league and a recreation program for kids in public housing. And a program to help people train for their high school equivalency diploma.
And in my spare time I joined the McGovern for President campaign. Shh, don't tell anybody. I wasn't supposed to.
I loved Senator McGovern. Unlike his oppenents, the soft spoken Senator Muskie, the compromised former Vice President Humphry or the hawkish Senator Jackson, McGovern's opposition to the horrible Vietnam War was deep and passionate. Like mine. Much to my surprise he did well in the primaries and I joined his campaign.
The first thing we did was voter registration. To my surprise we registered far more democrats than republicans. After he won the nomination we started to canvass and found a good bit of McGovern support. I was made leader in 5 districts which we thought would go our way. Things looked good!
Then things turned bad. The Democratic convention was so crazy that McGovern didn't give his acceptance speech till 2 in the morning...long after even I had fallen asleep. His VP pick had to resign after word leaked that he'd received electrical shock therapy for depression. Neither Senator Kennedy or several other big name Democrats would accept McGovern's pleas for them to become his new running mate, leaving my guy hanging and looking silly. He also felt he had to withdraw his signature domestic proposal...a negative income tax...because almost no one could understand it. I recall a part of that speech: "A leader who won't change isn't a leader, he's a disaster."
Sadly the campaign had become a disaster. No Democratic leader or candidate in Kentucky would say McGovern's name. At a fundraiser for our Senatorial candidate, the nominee ended his remarks by saying: "Let's support our ticket from the top to the bottom." "Top of the Ticket." That was as close as they'd come to naming the man at the top of our ticket.
Still I worked with all my heart. And we did well. The only disaster WE had was when I called a potential voter named Alex Pigg. I couldn't help it. I asked to speak to Mr. Pigg and couldn't stop laughing! On the plus side I hadn't yet identified myself as a rep from the McGovern campaign.
Talk at campaign headquarters focused on Harry Truman. He had completely fooled the polls so who's to say we couldn't too. If that was our best shot I was not encouraged.
On Election Day I still held on to hope but knew it would take a near miracle. I walked out onto Boone Street very early that morning; I was the Democratic Challenger at one of the polling places as we were on guard against Republican shenanigans. I noticed a light rain fell. RAIN? I became excited. Maybe it was raining all over the country! Maybe the rain would get very hard! And maybe only the most commited of voters...McGovern supporters, of course...would come out! We could win a low turnout election! Oh my gosh!
I got to the poll on, I think, Monmouth Street. The rain had stopped.
There were no Republican shenanigans at the poll. Perhaps I'd scared them off. Still I had work to do. A person came in not knowing how to vote. The election officials there sent me into the booth to help him.
Now I imagine you realize that they shouldn't have done that. You don't send a representative from 1 political party into a voting booth to help an uncertain voter. But that is what they did. So in I went. And asked who he wanted to vote for. To my horror he said: "Nixon." I moved my finger towards the clip next to Nixon's name. I paused. My finger began shaking. I lowered my hand and now my finger was next to the name McGovern. The shaking became a lot worse as I contemplated going against the voter's instructions. I couldn't get myself to do it. But how could I cast a vote for Nixon? I don't know. But I did. His vote (the idiot!) went the way he intended.
It happened two more times that day. Two voters who needed help. Help to vote for Nixon. Each time it was easier to cast the asked for ballot.
At the end of the day, the voting officials had me view the actual vote count. This was important because this was one of our Priority districts. We needed a big win here. And we did win...by 3 votes. My heart fell. A 3 vote win in our priority district where we had focused so much effort. I knew that we had lost.
A while later, at campaign headquarters, I watched on TV as the news anchor announced the first state projected for Nixon...Kentucky, of course. And based in part on my 3 votes!
I've just got to do better for Obama!
Monday, September 3, 2012
RACING IN A STATE OF CONFUSION
I like to think while I run. Problem solving thoughts, happy thoughts, heroic thoughts, why I'm right and pretty much everyone else is wrong thoughts. Inside my mind, at least during runs, is generally a very pleasant place.
But not when I race. Racing is stressful. I'm trying to find the fastest possible pace that I can maintain for the distance we're going. And that means making really intense demands on my legs, my muscles and my heart's ability to get oxygen and fuel circulated to every part of me that's getting increasingly desperate for it.
And that, as you can imagine, causes me to feel VERY uncomfortable. And that discomfort is not conducive to my usual happy thinking. It's really not conducive to thinking at all. Except, of course, thinking about how I'm doing. Now THAT I can focus on!
But, sadly, not at today's Roosevelt Island 5K. The race was very unfair to me. It wouldn't let me figure out if I was doing good until I was convinced that I was doing very, very bad.
Last week you may recall I raced a very tough 5K course in Harlem and averaged 8 minutes and 1 second per mile. So I figured that "doing good" on this easier, much flatter course would be at least a sub 8 minute pace. Of course, beating that pace by just a second or two really wouldn't feel so great. I hoped to get it down around 7:45. That seemed achievable.
At the starting line, this is what I thought: "Go out agressive but not too agressive. Be fast but not at an exhausting pace. Try to hit about 7:40 at the 1 mile marker and hope to not feel so weakened that the remaining 2.1 miles will seem like torture." Not happy thoughts. Strategic, however.
The race began and a very fast lead pack went off into the distance. I was at the head of the second pack and no one was passing me. We headed north on the Queens side of the Island, ran under the 59th Street Bridge to the Island's boundary, turned right, then right again and headed back the other way with Manhattan now on our left. At the 1 mile marker I read my watch: 7:52. This was not wonderful...though not terrible...news. Good to be under 8 but I'd have to speed up to reach my 7:45 goal and already I was feeling uncomfortable and fatigued.
Not pleasant to consider.
Suddenly I had other thoughts. I was passing other runners. How was this possible? Took me a moment but then I realized it was because there was also a 10K race going on at the exact same time as ours. Their course had begun just ahead of ours and now I was catching up to their back of the pack runners. Damn, I enjoyed that! For the entire second mile...even as my discomfort was getting to mild pain...I had some fun with going by someone on his left, then someone on her right, then in between 2 of them!
Here came the 2 mile marker...7:27. 7:27!!!! Oh my gosh I ran mile 2 in 7:27? That's so much better than I thought I could possibly do! Now I didn't even have to do a very hard mile 3! I was well ahead of expectations. All I had to do was hang in there! But that was now more and more difficult to do because the discomfort that had turned to mild pain was now definitely, unquestionably true pain. I wanted to slow but I didn't want to slow because it looked like a really good time was in reach.
I pushed ahead and finally, up ahead, I saw it, the 3 mile marker. I glanced at my watch and saw that it was just getting to 7 minutes! I'd probably hit 3 miles in a bit over 7:30 and then there'd be just a tenth of a mile to go. Sweet!
And then I really saw it. As I got close to the mile marker I saw it and it was terrible! This: 10K. It was the 3 mile marker for the 10K race, not my 5K race! Where was the 5k marker? I kept running and looked at my watch. 7:45, no marker. 8:00 no marker. 8:30, nothing. Finally, there it was. I reached it...8:54! I'd run an 8:54 mile 3! How could that be? I hadn't walked, had barely slowed. Were the other mile markers wrong? Didn't matter. I'd run this course before and, as I crossed the finish line 41 seconds later I felt pretty confident that it was 5K that I'd just run. A fair mile 1, a good mile 2 and a HORRIBLE mile 3!
Walking now I was able to calculate pretty clearly. This all added up to a pace well OVER 8 minutes for the mile. On easier, flat Roosevelt Island I'd run substantially slower than I had on the hilly, nasty Harlem course. How could that be? What was wrong?
I approached the race director and told him something seemed amiss with the mile markers cause my mile 3 had been much slower than mile 2. He asked if perhaps I'd misread the mile 2 marker...maybe that was for the 10K? Yeah, well, right. I'd done it for mile 3. Maybe I'd done it on mile 2 as well.
"Otherwise," the director asked, "how did you like the race?" "Yeah, well, it was fine, except for my total fuck up," I didn't say but did think to myself. See, no more happy thoughts.
After awhile I decided to take in the totality of the bad news. I looked at my watch. It read 23:54 for the entire race. Wait a minute. That's not so bad. That's definitely under 8 minute pace. In fact well under it. Was it? Maybe I was mistaken now. No, definitely under 8. How could that be?
So I looked at the splits for each mile. Remember, at mile 1, my watch said I'd run it in a mediocre 7:52? Well, that's what I saw, but that wasn't what was there. It had read 6:52. But since 7:52 was possible and 6:52 (at least for now) isn't, my mind interpreted it as the reasonable time for the first mile. And so I had an incredibly fast time for mile 1, an equally unbelievable 3 mile split and together, along with my quite good...and perhaps actually accurate...mile 2 averaged out to a 7:43 race.
About what I thought I could do from the beginning. Too bad my addled running mind couldn't see it coming!
But not when I race. Racing is stressful. I'm trying to find the fastest possible pace that I can maintain for the distance we're going. And that means making really intense demands on my legs, my muscles and my heart's ability to get oxygen and fuel circulated to every part of me that's getting increasingly desperate for it.
And that, as you can imagine, causes me to feel VERY uncomfortable. And that discomfort is not conducive to my usual happy thinking. It's really not conducive to thinking at all. Except, of course, thinking about how I'm doing. Now THAT I can focus on!
But, sadly, not at today's Roosevelt Island 5K. The race was very unfair to me. It wouldn't let me figure out if I was doing good until I was convinced that I was doing very, very bad.
Last week you may recall I raced a very tough 5K course in Harlem and averaged 8 minutes and 1 second per mile. So I figured that "doing good" on this easier, much flatter course would be at least a sub 8 minute pace. Of course, beating that pace by just a second or two really wouldn't feel so great. I hoped to get it down around 7:45. That seemed achievable.
At the starting line, this is what I thought: "Go out agressive but not too agressive. Be fast but not at an exhausting pace. Try to hit about 7:40 at the 1 mile marker and hope to not feel so weakened that the remaining 2.1 miles will seem like torture." Not happy thoughts. Strategic, however.
The race began and a very fast lead pack went off into the distance. I was at the head of the second pack and no one was passing me. We headed north on the Queens side of the Island, ran under the 59th Street Bridge to the Island's boundary, turned right, then right again and headed back the other way with Manhattan now on our left. At the 1 mile marker I read my watch: 7:52. This was not wonderful...though not terrible...news. Good to be under 8 but I'd have to speed up to reach my 7:45 goal and already I was feeling uncomfortable and fatigued.
Not pleasant to consider.
Suddenly I had other thoughts. I was passing other runners. How was this possible? Took me a moment but then I realized it was because there was also a 10K race going on at the exact same time as ours. Their course had begun just ahead of ours and now I was catching up to their back of the pack runners. Damn, I enjoyed that! For the entire second mile...even as my discomfort was getting to mild pain...I had some fun with going by someone on his left, then someone on her right, then in between 2 of them!
Here came the 2 mile marker...7:27. 7:27!!!! Oh my gosh I ran mile 2 in 7:27? That's so much better than I thought I could possibly do! Now I didn't even have to do a very hard mile 3! I was well ahead of expectations. All I had to do was hang in there! But that was now more and more difficult to do because the discomfort that had turned to mild pain was now definitely, unquestionably true pain. I wanted to slow but I didn't want to slow because it looked like a really good time was in reach.
I pushed ahead and finally, up ahead, I saw it, the 3 mile marker. I glanced at my watch and saw that it was just getting to 7 minutes! I'd probably hit 3 miles in a bit over 7:30 and then there'd be just a tenth of a mile to go. Sweet!
And then I really saw it. As I got close to the mile marker I saw it and it was terrible! This: 10K. It was the 3 mile marker for the 10K race, not my 5K race! Where was the 5k marker? I kept running and looked at my watch. 7:45, no marker. 8:00 no marker. 8:30, nothing. Finally, there it was. I reached it...8:54! I'd run an 8:54 mile 3! How could that be? I hadn't walked, had barely slowed. Were the other mile markers wrong? Didn't matter. I'd run this course before and, as I crossed the finish line 41 seconds later I felt pretty confident that it was 5K that I'd just run. A fair mile 1, a good mile 2 and a HORRIBLE mile 3!
Walking now I was able to calculate pretty clearly. This all added up to a pace well OVER 8 minutes for the mile. On easier, flat Roosevelt Island I'd run substantially slower than I had on the hilly, nasty Harlem course. How could that be? What was wrong?
I approached the race director and told him something seemed amiss with the mile markers cause my mile 3 had been much slower than mile 2. He asked if perhaps I'd misread the mile 2 marker...maybe that was for the 10K? Yeah, well, right. I'd done it for mile 3. Maybe I'd done it on mile 2 as well.
"Otherwise," the director asked, "how did you like the race?" "Yeah, well, it was fine, except for my total fuck up," I didn't say but did think to myself. See, no more happy thoughts.
After awhile I decided to take in the totality of the bad news. I looked at my watch. It read 23:54 for the entire race. Wait a minute. That's not so bad. That's definitely under 8 minute pace. In fact well under it. Was it? Maybe I was mistaken now. No, definitely under 8. How could that be?
So I looked at the splits for each mile. Remember, at mile 1, my watch said I'd run it in a mediocre 7:52? Well, that's what I saw, but that wasn't what was there. It had read 6:52. But since 7:52 was possible and 6:52 (at least for now) isn't, my mind interpreted it as the reasonable time for the first mile. And so I had an incredibly fast time for mile 1, an equally unbelievable 3 mile split and together, along with my quite good...and perhaps actually accurate...mile 2 averaged out to a 7:43 race.
About what I thought I could do from the beginning. Too bad my addled running mind couldn't see it coming!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)