still in awe

I will do my week in review tomorrow with an update on the surgery, the Jazz, the Tiger Extravaganza, etc.. Tonight I need to end with my thoughts on the events of this morning/early afternoon. But before I begin I need to go back to a conversation I had with Jared Covili at the end of last month. We both met at the SLC Library to attend a Barack Obama meeting, it was called the Community Kickoff, you can read more about it here in Covili's own blog. The jist of the conversation was kinda like how much involvement do I/we really want to have? I mean it is Utah. What can we really do? How much effort/involvement should I/we have? We didn't really answer the questions, we just asked them. I guess maybe I should have answered them. Maybe that's how I got to today.
I have already written by diatribe on Obama and Politics in Utah so I won't go into all that you can look them up if you haven't read them. I guess I should explain that on the Obama website you can make your own profile and look up others local and national that you can communicate with. Anyone can set up a group and anyone can join. For instance when I first signed up on the Obama site I signed up for Utah for Obama of which there were 134 members, nearly two months later there are now 188 and more arriving. I decided I would start my own group for Davis County(since there was none). Everyday I would check it to see if anyone had joined, finally a few people did. Right now there are a whopping five members(of course one of those is me) obviously not quite as large as Utah for Obama.

This was gonna be easy, a small group, with little time commitment, or so I thought. I guess I should add that with anything you can make it lame or great depending on what you put in. If you know me well you know that when I decide that something is worthwhile I go all out. That's why I am successful as a teacher, its also how I learned how to play chess a few years back. I decided I wanted to be great at it, not just average but great. So I studied and played and took my comeuppance, and eventually got real good. Not freaky good, but good enough. Since I created this group and was in reality the "group administrator" I felt I should do something, so I emailed the Davis County Democrat Chair, Richard Watson. He emailed right back. I was impressed with how quickly he responded and that he had really read what I wrote. He invited me to breakfast with other Davis County Democrats. My first thought was whether all of us would fit at one booth. Kidding. I thought it would be nice to meet some other people, see their interest in Obama, and invite them to join my fledgling Davis County for Obama group. What I found was that there was about 25 extremely nice people that had breakfast each month at Granny Annies. (So no, we didn't all fit in one booth). Richard gave me a few minutes to talk about Obama, so I did. They then asked if we were going to have a booth at the Davis County Convention. This is where that whole level of commitment thing kicked in. I thought why not. That's how I got to today.

Here is what happened. In preparation I made some photocopies, I made a banner, I made a t-shirt, I brought Obama's book and I made about 20 buttons using this logo:

I thought it would be cool to hand them out, I was right it was.
My only problem is I had no idea what I was doing or for that matter how these conventions work. I now understand. I got there right before it started, I guess I should have been there about an hour before. I didn't realize it was an actual meeting. That might sound stupid, but I thought it was just everyone getting together, I mean I figured there was going to be some program, I didn't know that it was ONLY a program with an agenda. And that I was ON the agenda.
I met with a few people before the program began. I do need to say that everyone that was supposed to come bailed on me; I felt like Covili at his fantasy draft, only I was flying solo.
When the program started I didn't really know what to do. I felt I should stay and find out what really went on at a convention, so I found a seat in the back and listened. There was a lot of formality items they were discussing, and I was feeling out of place so I glanced at the agenda to see how long this was going to be. That's when I spotted it. Down at the bottom. I read it again and again to make sure I was seeing it correctly. "Speeches by Presidential Campaign Representatives." I hoped this didn't mean me. I really hoped. But in the back of my mind I had this feeling that it was ME. I was THE representative for Obama. Obama certainly had no idea, nor did the campaign, that I was to be their sole spokesperson at the convention, that me some schmo, was going to have to speak in front of about 50 people without any preparation and represent Senator Barack Obama. So yeah I hoped it wasn't me. I was feeling pretty good about things, the program was nearly over, that is until one of the committee people, someone I had breakfast with a few weeks prior, came up and tapped me on the shoulder. This was our conversation.
He said, "You will speak second."
I said,"What do you mean I will speak second?"
He said, "We are going in alphabetical order.(as if that answered my question. It didn't)You will have three minutes."
Then he walked off. I sat in disbelief. There was no going back now. I couldn't run away and hide. I was ON the agenda. I thought of a hundred things to say, but I couldn't focus. My thoughts were jumbled. I had a few minutes to sort it out. It didn't work.
They announced that there would be a representative for Hillary, Obama, and Bill Richardson. Then they even announced my name as the Obama rep. I still want to know where they got my name? I thought about things for a minute and decided I would go with my own story of why I like Obama. Without any real preparation that would have to do. I listened to the Hillary guy tell of a story about how he knew her and all. I had to just laugh inside, I don't know Barack, he doesn't know me, and I'm still uncertain how I got wrapped up in all this. He finished and everyone's attention fixed on me.
I walked up to the podium and started telling how I came to support Obama I was actually doing pretty good, not great, but okay, then the timer guy held his hand up to signal one minute left. At first I thought he was asking me a question. I froze. No way could I be fielding questions. That was just too much. I then realized I had a minute, I tried to be funny, I wasn't. I knew I had to end it quick, cause I had lost any train of thought I might have had. I finished. Everyone clapped. I am still in shock about that, I guess its cause its a democratic convention. I didn't pay much attention to the Richardson guy, I just sat in awe, reflecting on the singularity of the experience. I had just given a speech at a convention as the representative for Obama about why everyone should vote for him. I am still in awe as I type this. Six weeks ago I was focused on basketball. Now I speaking in behalf of a US Senator who had no knowledge of this, or any knowledge about me. I can go back to that conversation with Covili and laugh. "How much involvement do I want to have?"
My final thought is this: it was cool to have the opportunity to speak about Obama in front of this group. I was out of sorts, unprepared, out of my league(I'm used to 13-15yr olds), yet it was pretty neat to get up in front of this group and tell about myself and why I support Obama. I still can't believe it happened and think its funny. But it was a neat experience, I certainly won't forget it for a while.