I'm convinced that the first thing you lose working for a campaign is facial recognition and name memory. I was registering voters with my Field Organizer the other day (yesterday? I don't know…) when someone came up to us and shook his hand. "Kirby! I haven't seen you since the primary!" She continued, eventually saying something along the lines of, "you'll be happy to know my brother's surgery went fine and he's in recovery." After five minutes of holding his own, Kirby separated from the conversation so we could continue our registration efforts. As we walked away, he leaned over to me and said, "I have NO IDEA who she was."
Side note: If you're reading this and under thirty, I know what you're thinking. Yes, my boss' name is Kirby. If you don't know what I'm talking about, read this. It suffices to say that the irony runs deep, especially because until the fellows showed up, Kirby had no idea he was actually a bouncy, pink Nintendo bubble-creature who could suck up other Nintendo-creatures' powers.
The second thing you lose working for a campaign is any sense of chronology whatsoever. I remember a solidly good fraction of the last month, but have little perception of the order in which it occurred. Memorable moments are just that: moments, no longer in context. So, the duration of this post is vignettes, a few of the tidbits I remember from the last few weeks. The names are all aliases.
Mr. Franklin
I work in two neighborhoods, as I mentioned in my last post. The Hill District, a poor and overwhelmingly African American neighborhood in which all 15,000 residents know each other, and Polish Hill, a poor and overwhelmingly white neighborhood, in which all 1,500 residents barely say 'hi' to their neighbors.
One Hill District resident called me (I'm not sure where he got my number) and began complaining about misuse of office space and inattention to the Hill District during the Pennsylvania primary. To be fair, the campaign is well aware that the Pittsburgh primary campaign was not a great one, and many important people and neighborhoods were overlooked. His complaints turned into trying to rent us office space, and as it was 11:30 pm and I was trying to cook dinner, I cut him off, asking if he would meet with me in person the following day. He gives me an address, I give him a time, and I go back to preparing my hearty and original meal of pasta from a 5 lb bag and red sauce from a 60 oz plastic jar of 'Prego.'
The next day, I show up first to the address, a locked building on the main street of the Hill with grates on the door and A few minutes later, a cab comes down the street, flips a U turn in the middle of the block, pulls over, and the driver beckons to me to get in. After a split second of hesitation, I throw my backpack - which has my life (computer) in it – into the back seat and get in. It's Mr. Franklin, an 81 year old man who has lived in the Hill District all his life. He owns a cab company, by which I mean he drives his own cab. There's a large sign on the side of his building with the words "Eagle Taxi" and a phone number painted in cursive script. Dial the number and you'll get his wife, also in her 80's, who will use a CB radio to direct Mr. Franklin to wherever you may be. Mr. Franklin treats his radio like he were an eight year old kid, which is exactly how I would treat a CB radio if I had one. (Probably why I think he's such a cool guy.) He will ONLY call it his "communications system," never just a "radio," and raises his wife to ask when supper will be ready by calling, "Unit One to Base." It's the best thing ever.
He is amazingly proud of his independence; he does everything himself. He keeps his cab and trucks (this 81 year old has two moving trucks and does shipping and hauling, too) "repaired himself." His house, and the added deck and garage? He "built himself." I eventually found out that what he meant by these statements was that he did everything on his terms. Not at the whim of a money-hoarding mechanic, he hires mechanics to come to him to keep his vehicles in tip-top shape. He did not build his house in the literal sense, but it was built under his watch, and he owns it in the clear.
The best part: two years ago, he was flown to Los Angeles to try to hold his own on "The Price is Right." I did not believe the man until he showed me the massive, 4-foot check for $2500 that lives behind his dresser.
Now, I am working with some local artists, contractors, and community members to get kids to paint a huge Obama mural and hang it on the side of one of his buildings. The icing on the cake: it was Mr. Franklin's idea.
Marie
Unlike the Hill, it's not easy to find Obama supporters in Polish Hill. Marie was one of the few (eight, actually) names of supporters from the Primary in the volunteer tracking system the campaign uses. She graciously offered to host a Unite For Change House Party, and I worked with her to plan the small event and invite neighbors and community members. This 72 year old woman spent two evenings walking around her neighborhood with me and knocking on doors, inviting complete strangers into her home for a potluck. The day of the potluck, of course, she cooked enough food to feed all twelve guests.
A part of the House Party programming was essentially story-telling: each guest was asked to explain to the group what brought them to the party and to their support of Obama or any other candidate, with special emphasis on the host (Marie) and the organizer (me). Marie had been scared about sharing her story in our meetings beforehand, and had on my urging a few times practiced by telling me some of what she hoped to say. What came out the night of the party was completely different. This woman had grown up in quite racist Kentucky and was in her teens at the end of World War II. When racially integrated platoons would return to the army base near her town, black and white soldiers alike, who had just spent months or years fighting and dying side by side, would walk into the restaurant where Marie waited tables. She wanted to serve them, but her boss, "Mr. Roy," would not have it. Marie, a white teenager who everyone called "Peanuts," would get into public shouting matches with her boss about not serving the black war heroes.
To me, this story is great for three reasons. First, of course, a 17 year old Kentuckian had the cajones to talk back to her boss about the wrongs of segregation. Second, her nickname was "Peanuts." Third, she felt comfortable enough in a room full of strangers to tell us that her nickname was "Peanuts."
Marie is a trooper, and is going to make a great neighborhood team captain.
David Shapiro
Field organizing is probably the most humbling thing I have ever done in my life. By that I mean the job has a tendency, just when you think you're having a great day, to trip you and then have the nerve to rub your fallen face in the mud.
Moreover, it is humbling to be surrounded by people who have truly given their complete selves to this campaign. I'll be honest: I thought I was all that when I decided to take a semester off to work for the campaign, but I am surrounded by people who have given so much more and taken so many more risks to be a part of this movement. David is just one example.
David works for the campaign as a field organizer. He's a Philadelphia Jew, which means he pronounces his last name "sha-PI-row" instead of "sha-pee-row," which I still haven't gotten used to. He is blatantly honest to a fault, loves Barack almost as much as he loves all sports anywhere, and has made the profound sacrifice of buying and wearing Pittsburgh sports team paraphernalia and hiding his Phillies gear in his closet. A lawyer in his late twenties, David has spent the last few years working for one of Philadelphia's top litigation firms. In the weeks before the Pennsylvania Primary, this lawyer put in eight hours a day on the campaign doing whatever they needed him to do, after working a full day at his law firm. After the primary, he was warned that if he left to work for Barack, there would be no job waiting for him when he got back. He quit anyway, and then volunteered for a month with no guarantee the campaign would actually hire him.
I was at the bars with some of the staff a few nights ago, and I told David that he was the biggest asshole I had ever wanted to be friends with. He took it as a compliment, which is exactly how I meant it.
Steve
I met Steve, an older man who has lived in Pittsburgh all his life, waiting for a bus one night at 9:00 or 9:30 at night. Dressed in old boots, and stained khakis, his collared light blue uniform shirt was tucked in yet unbuttoned to the bottom of his rib cage. He cleans PNC Park, where the Pirates play, after every home game. It takes four or five hours each night, he told me, depending on the crowd that night. He is extremely hunchbacked, to the point that I took as unspoken truth that he has been picking up other people's trash for a long, long time. He doesn't get to watch the games, but after this many years, I doubt he would want to. Yet each night, he takes a bus to the ballpark about half way through the game, not to return until the early hours of the morning.
I mention Steve only because he doesn't fit into any important, sought-after political demographic, he will never be on tv, and no one will ever write a book about him or anyone like him. He is practically invisible, both politically and socially, yet because of the job I do, I got to meet him. And he made my day.
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In other news, I think I might have a job after the fellowship is over! More on that later....
~m
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