A Very Special Senior Moment

I'm sitting at the computer in the living room this evening, searching the Intertubals, looking for some Blue Aeroplanes (anybody got any?) and there's a knock at the door.

What? Police? Men in black? Girl Scouts? Cookies!!!

No, it's an older white man in very nice golfing clothes. Total AARP ad. Not the norm at my door.

I go out on the porch to see what he wants. I expect he's a candidate for some county office, assuming Republican, knocking on doors. Maybe he didn't see the Obama sign in the yard...

But that's exactly what he did see - the Obama sign in the yard. And he asks me where I got it and how can he get one!

Seems he's been looking for the local Dem HQ but hasn't been able to find it. I sympathize with him; it's not easy. If you blink when you drive by, you've missed it. So I almost literally draw him a map, using pots on the porch as landmarks, to tell him how to find it. And that it's gonna cost him 5 bucks.

"Five dollars? I have to pay for a sign?" I tell him that, yes, he does. Illinois isn't considered a battleground state for Barack and they don't supply them for free to local party groups here.

He laughs; it's okay. And he says it doesn't matter because he really wants one and this is the first time he's ever voted for a Democrat for President in his life. He seems to want to talk about it, I think. It's obviously pretty important to him if he's willing to knock on a weirdo's door to get a yard sign.

Wow is what I was thinking. Wow. This is like one of those special moments in the Daily Kos blogs I read all the time where the election and Obama are bringing very different people together for unique interchanges of ideas and hope. Like a million ABC After School Specials! And it's happening to me!

So I ask him the obvious question: "Have you always been a Republican or do you consider yourself independent?"

"Oh, independent, really. But I've always voted Republican for President. Never thought I'd be voting Democrat, but I've got too."

"Yeah," I answered him. "Me, too. I mean, I've always been independent but voted Democrat for President. I did vote for Nader in 2000 because I think we need a viable third party in this country."

"You and my daughter" he says, laughing. "She's always said the same thing."

We agreed this was a pretty amazing time and then, for reasons I'm not going to blog about, we discussed black walnuts and one of my neighbors and in a few minutes he went his way and I went mine. If I hadn't had to leave to take The Boy to his martial arts class, I'd have asked him in for a beer. I really would have liked that. But we both had to go - he wanted to get to Dem HQ before they closed at 6 o'clock. We said our goodbyes and goodlucks and parted on the porch.

I feel pretty damn good tonight. I hope he does too.

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