Saturday/Sunday canvassing.

I went canvassing for Obama on Saturday and Sunday too. I worked a lot, and it was relatively uneventful except for --

There was this one dignified-looking older black woman who would man the volunteer center at this one canvassing staging area - she was retired from some professional job and lived a couple blocks over, so would stroll over and work every day all day - and the second day I was canvassing, she was sitting there in a black pantsuit and wearing gold earrings and with carefully-coiffed hair, and in her tasteful black purse on the table, her cell phone went off, and her ringtone was "What's Going On".

When I was in this one black neighborhood in Gary, there was this young high school kid working out in the yard, and when I walked up to him and introduced myself and he was about to go get his parents, the ice cream truck started going by, so I first asked him to wait till I ran and got some ice cream, and then I had a second thought and took him along to get ice cream, and we were standing there eating sandwiches when his parents dashed out of the house to buy ice cream too. After that, we all stood around talking about Gary and about Obama, and they were telling me that the other week when Obama was in Gary to speak, this woman robbed a bank and got away with it, since she had planned to do it when all the police and everyone were tied up at guarding the convention center.

Everyone I met, too, was incredibly pissed at Jeremiah Wright:

1) This one black church organist I canvassed with was a very nice person - he was hoping these two old ladies on the list he knew weren't home, since he hadn't seen them in years and he knew they'd talk his ear off - but he said something to the effect that though Wright was right about shady U.S. involvement in foreign governments, he should have kept quiet after Obama started getting flack.

2) This group of black kids from a local high school who volunteered at the local office to make visibility signs for election day - "Barack the Vote!" - "Mama's for Obama!" - were talking about Wright while we were all coloring and painting, and the one girl was like, "And he even came in to talk to the Clintons after that one scandal, you know, who's that hoochie?, and now they won't even talk to him."

3) This one old asthmatic black lady who was out watering her flowers said that give her a thousand dollars, and she'd go up to Chicago and wring Wright's neck.