When three becomes fifteen

When three equals fifteen It’s an once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see a President. It is for me. I work for the government (sort of) but not in the capacity that ever brings me in contact with those that make the decisions. You can imagine then when I got the opportunity, I took it. (Spoiler alert: I lean to the left in my politics; that will become evident but I just thought you should know that up front.) Granted it was a campaign stop, and I’d be with several thousand others, but I had to take it. The last time I got within visual distance of a President, I was 7, it was in Vail, and the President was Gerald Ford. (Anyone under 25 should consult Google on that one.) That was purely by accident. It was my mother who recognized him, pointed him out. To this day he’s just a smudge in my head, the day a fuzzy memory for me now. To make things better, the appearance was going to be on the campus of my alma mater CU. I seem to rarely make it back to where I did my most learning. It’s been taken over by other generations doing the same thing I did: trying to figure out who we are, as a person, as a group, as a people. I’m guessing that most of the people coming to the rally were those that either live close to campus or in town, because we saw very little traffic on the way up. We found ourselves behind three emergency vehicles on the highway. It was a Jefferson County bomb squad, checking the route to the campus for explosives. This was at nine o’clock in the morning, hours before he would leave his hotel and make his way toward the Flatirons and Boulder. We found a choice parking place thanks to the friend that got me the tickets, several hundred yards from the planned rally spot. First, of course, we would need to line up, all 13,000 of us it turned out, so that we could be searched (minimally, uninvasively), to ensure the safety for all at the event. We ended up right next to a cop car and a porta-potty. I don’t think they were deliberately near each other. This nattering woman behind us started to complain about the exhaust coming from the cruiser, decrying the waste of fuel. Much to her surprise, the officer inside the vehicle got out and asked if she, the woman in line, had spoken to her, the Boulder Police officer. Her bluster was severely diminished as she made her point. The officer tried told the woman that the engine ran the air conditioning, keeping the electronic equipment in the car running smoothly. She, the woman in line, wasn’t convinced. Near that time the line began to move. It turned out to be one of several lines that funneled the people to the security checkpoint. That turned out to be several temporary tents set up just to the north of Hellums (isn’t that where the Mary Rippon Theatre is?). The line moved steadily, leaving us sometimes in shade, others not. The late summer heat built slowly throughout the morning. There were pamphlets handed out that discussed the idea of the loss of ethics being the core problem with today’s society. Sounds like a good idea, but since the booklet was so poorly written, their ideas were lost in a miasma of convoluted logic. It was interesting to see how many people around us took the pamphlet, read the first page, then handed it back. Contrary ideas that challenge our own view of the world can be so difficult to hear or read. The civility of the crowd, despite the twin challenges of heat and time, was nice to see. Periodic chants rose up, only to die quickly. A prodigious amount of liquids were consumed, with some bringing their own bottles as well as several aid stations set up along the route. There was an emphasis on voter registration all along the route to the rally. From the perspective of reminding people they needed to check their status to those scattered about with clipboards to assist those that needed it. After about an hour, we arrived at the security tent. We were told to take everything out of our pockets and have all electronics turned on. It took less than a minute to pass through the white tent, then we were able to join the throng spread out on Norlin Quad. The sun ducked in an out of clouds (mostly out) and the real baking began. What they forget to tell you about is the variety of odors one has to endure in an event like this. Thousands of people coming together, regardless of the intent of the gathering, means a fair amount of sweaty pits and flatulence. The kind of flatulence one wouldn’t want to take credit for. Thankfully, there were no attending sounds to the periodic gas releases. This was when the real waiting began. There were speakers blaring music (Al Green; Wilco; Keane, I think, at one point) but little else to occupy one’s attention. Several people brought reading material and one family spread out a blanket and played card games. Conversations, most likely surrounding the topic of when he was going to arrive, were just about the only distractions. There was a surge forward at one point – they took down a temporary barrier – and we nearly halved our distance to the stage, not really that impressive as we were still quite a ways away. Tall people, and those with children on shoulders, were the recipients of silent, buy probably not heart-felt, curses. No incline or slope helped those height-challenged. An acapella group, In the Buff, performed at one point; several earnest young men, whose chutzpah clearly out striped their talent. Spend a little more time around the piano, boys. Eventually, the speakers began: an invocation (much too political for my tastes), a Congressman, a Senator, a governor, a campus organizer, another student. The introduction of each new speaker sent a ripple of disappointment through the crowd. I was becoming afraid it would become audible to those on the stage. Then a young man came to the podium (to introduce the President!) to explain his reasons for working for the campaign. The healthcare legislation, he told us, would have helped his family weather several health scares, had it been enacted just a few years earlier. Then the President came out. Thunderous applause, a requisite peppy tune on the speakers and lots of sign waving. There were lots of interrupting cheers at the appropriate moments. He was done in about fifteen minutes. Three hours of waiting followed by fifteen minutes of stump speech, most of which has been heard on the nightly news. And yet the elation of spirit, the focus of intent, these were his gifts. They have been his gifts in the past and continue to be so. When you believe in someone, when you believe their vision of the way forward augments your own, you are willing to support them. You are willing to set aside petty concerns like how your feet feel or how hot you are just to hear a few words that lift your spirit. The security measures become unimportant, the livestock-like funneling of people into the appropriate areas become unimportant. When someone makes you believe in something bigger than yourself, challenges you to face your own foibles and misconceptions, that’s a person I have no problem giving my support.