Election Day in Wisconsin (7 of ?): Wine.

When I had checked into Racine, there was this intense but nice-looking (black) lady handing out clipboards, and then later I saw her just sitting next to the wine table and there was an empty chair near her, so I asked her if I could join her.

"Yeah," she was like, "Please!  But I have to watch this table.  I don't want the kids getting in it and the opposition making anything of it."

Then, someone young came up, and she asked for IDs, and when they reached in their purse, she was like, "Okay, you're okay," and waved them to the wine, and told them they were cool since they were willing to show ID, which showed you that they had it.

As we talked for a second, I noticed that she had a silver thumb ring on her right hand, and between that and her short hair and intensity, I suddenly realized that she was a local lesbian activist who had appointed herself to watch over the Franzia and take care of the kids and the local Dems' reputation.

I talked with her more, and she had grown up in the Chicago, but said she had never really fit in.

"Back home, people were all about rioting, looting, being loud and proud and all that," she was like, "And I'm that too, but that's not all of me, I've got a hippy side, where I skip in the sunshine and blow bubbles and sing 'la la la' all day, so it fits me better up here."

She then told me about being in MLK's March on Washington with her mom, several gay and lesbian marches in D.C., and taking a vanload of people out to the Million Man March at the last minute, since people she knew wanted to go but didn't have rides.

Then, several (white) girls who might have been in their mid-20s, but also might have been in their late teens, came up to get some wine and asked her if it was free.

"You got IDs?", she was like, and then she turned back to talk to me.  After a few sentences, she was like, "Look, they're gone, all you gotta do is ask, and they remove themselves."