Marion, OH - my

If there was ever a day on this triop that would shape my life, it was today in Marion, OH, a town about an hour out of Columbus. We were sent here to canvas door to door and talk to "undecideds" and make sure that Dems were 1. voting for Obama and 2. actually going to do it. This campaign was not going to miss a beat. That impressed and inspired me.

Marion's Obama-Central. Headed by the amazing Paul who Obama should give a cabinet position to.

This photo says it all about democracy to me. It is in every hall all across the country. Because we can.

Us clean cut college kids left Columbus to drive to Marion in the morning. When we got there I thought of two words "Mississippi" and "Burning." I will say this is a slight exaggeration, but I was not alone in feeling questionable about my safety there. Since, for some of us, this was our first day, we did not know what lay beyond the doors of the houses we were going to be knocking on.

Marion, OH - the other side of the tracks indeed.

The part of Marion we saw was depressed. Poverty, blight, decay. Let me act as if I was a production designer and casting director for a film called "Campaign Marion."

"Okay people we need 3 or 4 crates of stray cats, a beat up couch for every other lawn (when you deliver it roll it in filth and fling it in a heap on the front lawn), garbage and garbage smell everywhere. (the smell will inform the actors). Chipped paint. Loads of it.

Now for the actors. I need a, I don't know how better to put it so sorry, a "poor white trash" vibe. I want every other tooth removed. Give some of the guys a "crystal meth" look. Heck, lets just be able to smell meth all around. Make-up, put tattoos on every third white person's neck. Paint butterflies, names of guys who will leave them, that sort of thing. I need about 50 filthy babies for all the teenage mother's to cradle in their right hips so they can hold a cigarette in the left. Also can you put up crosses and evangelical posters on porches? And I need one "BEWARE: PIT BULL WITH AIDS" sign for someone who thinks he is funny's front porch. Key scene I am told. Make the black neighborhood even worse. Disable some of the young black men and put some tall boys bottles of beer on porches."

God, guns and gays.

This place ruined by time and 8 years of Bush put a mental Chief Whatever with Tear Rolling Down Face feeling in me. "How can I think I am so worldly yet not be aware that this is in America?" How is THIS America?

I have to say here that with anyone who does not agree with me politically,etc. I just have wanted to say "Eff You" to you and go and hide in the comfort of San Francisco, Los Angeles, or New York, but here I was door to door talking to white born again Christians who did not think like I did. And I was not allowed to say "Eff You." And good thing.

Sarah, my most excellent beat walking partner, and I spoke to a 23 year old mother of 4 on SDI and Welfare with non-voting husband/boyfriend and tattoo on neck (his and hers). Here was an example for me. I have wanted to stay far away from "these people" and I learned that they have their world view shaped by their world as I have mine. And I have to accept that I though I live in the Real America, they do too.

Anyway, this young woman said that she really did not like the last 8 years of Bush, ("Whew," I thought), but her church told her that when a black man takes charge it will mark the end of the world. They told her it is in the bible. Wow.

Sarah and I were able to talk to her about her feelings on this issue. (Growth for me.) I found her quite intelligent and honest. We liked her. She had never read that passage in the bible herself and was able by the end to come to vote for Obama and accept a lift to the polls as she had no transport. A-mazing.

So many others were honest about not being able to vote for a black man. I was able to stay calm and talk to them. One teenage mom who was stoned and holding filthy baby at door was still undecided because she HEARD that Obama refuses to say the Pledge of Allegiance. I remained calm and dispelled this for her , or me, really, as she was STONED.

And we got to go into the black neighborhoods and speak to them as well. All Obama supporters, as I remember, but were they going to vote? I met an 18 year old black woman who would be voting for the first time. The excitement in her face made me want to cry.

Really, we ARE all the same. But we are so divided in being able to see it.

Thank you Marion OH for teaching me, and opening MY mind.