Saturday, October 25, 2008

Kanjorski


photo by Ron Rabenol

When I met him he took both of my hands in his. He has these big powerful hands like a sailor. I mean the kind of sailor who was used to pulling ropes on a wooden ship. I told him that I was the guy who put the Lehighton office together. He looked me in the eye and said:
"I hear you are doing great things."
So naturally I thought him a decent man.

He asked me what I needed. I told him we needed signs. The locals were fixated on the sign war. These giant McCain/Palin signs really made them feel defeated and the ubiquitous LOU signs were just more stray buckshot.
"Is that all?" He said.
"I don't know sir, can you somehow get these people to volunteer?"
He turned me over to his assistant who had some impossible name like Heather Feather. She had the manicured look of an airline pilot. I gave her my details.

I had to leave before he gave his speech in the cellar of the AmVets hall. The Hall had been built in the 50s and nothing had changed about it except that it had acquired a 5 decade coat of coal dust. Veterans quietly drank upstairs in a long dimly lit bar. The were waited upon by women who still sported the bouffant hairdos of their distant youth.,

The rain was coming down in torrents as I drove back to Lehighton. Later I heard that Kanjorski's speech, along with an indictment of the Bush regime as imperialist, included a plea for volunteers. The next day, the hard core democrats,, the ones who snorted at me when I talked about phone banking and canvassing, began showing up.

Sorry about the over the top style Marin. But I needed to get that written anyways.

No comments: