The following is a true story of what can happen on a beautiful, sunny, Sunday afternoon in a parking lot in semi-Rural Red.
Setting: Although we’re still in Ashcroft Country, this place isn’t quite as rural or as red as the town where we last hung our hat.
So, as usual, when headed to the grocery store, I wore one of my Kerry/Edwards or Boston Convention tees. Just because. @;-) Driving into the lot, I happened behind a minivan with a Kerry sticker I’d not seen before.
“Rednecks for Kerry: Real People Need Real Jobs!”
I followed the van and parked next to it. Got out of the jeep, knocked on the window, and had a rousing conversation with the 60ish couple inside the van.
We talked about Kerry. We talked about the 2000 & 2004 selections. We talked about the 2006 election. We talked about the 2008 election. We talked about Diebold. We talked about the torture bill. (And the folly of leaving the defination of what torture is up to Mr. Bush.) We talked about taking the pulse of the country this coming November. And we talked about our efforts to put Claire McCaskill in the Senate.
It was a good talk.
I went into the store. I came out of the store. I walked to my jeep.
I passed behind a truck with a battered Kerry/Edwards sticker. I went up to the truck, knocked on the window, and told the man inside that I liked his bumper sticker.
He said, “Oh yeah, my wife just couldn’t bring herself to take it off.”
So we chatted.
I got in the jeep. As I backed out, the man with the truck and his wife were loading their groceries and he was pointing to me. So I stopped, got out, and she and I chatted. She said she would have given anything to have gone to the convention. She said she couldn’t think of anything better than to be a Democrat and go to Boston and hear John Kerry and Ted Kennedy speak. I told her it was a memory for a lifetime. And I told her I loved that she still had her sticker on her car. She smiled.
Change is in the air. We are in charge of reality. We are.