NW Indiana - Voices

I had the chance to meet some of my neighbors tonight.  Face to face.  

Shaking hands. Listening to everyone's story. Telling your own. Learning to accept compliments gracefully. Seeing courtesy amid disagreement. Spontaneous generosity. And most of all, a tremendous outpouring of gratitude for the opportunity to be heard.

Every single one of them.

So what what was the lodestone?  Follow me over the fold...

 

Northwest Indiana found an opportunity this evening to gather as a community.  I wrote a bit about it in an earlier diary describing a little mishap I had while helping organize a March 4th Election Results Watch Party.  Well, I'm pleased to report that the Event was a resounding success!  

Our first stroke a good fortune came with Ryan and Frank, who made it possible to use a wonderful facility at the Purdue Calumet-Hammond Campus.  They worked their tails off making sure everything was in order.  We were provided tables for all the volunteer donated munchables (which were met with much enjoyment and appreciation), a spacious room with plenty of  comfortable seating, and 4 televisions (one of which was a large screen that dropped out of the ceiling, fer cryin' out loud!).

The next bit of invigorating news was the number of RSVP's that hit the sign up page.  Advertising consisted of on-campus flyers, a couple of diaries (one here and one on BlueIndiana, which is still embarrassing), invitations to just three Indiana groups on my.barackobama.com, and good old-fashioned word of mouth. We ended up with fifty-five just from the Obama sign-up site.  And that didn't include the students who were already at the venue after classes.  So, with only minimal advertising and only a few days notice, we saw a substantial turnout of 50 to 60 people. (It was hard to tell because so many folks were coming & going over the span of the evening. It's entirely possible it was actually higher, but I'd rather not over-estimate.  

One very pleasant development was the spectrum of viewpoints being discussed.  The bulk of the folks were Obama supporters due to the fact that it was an Obama campaign conference call that kicked the whole thing off.  However, there were a fair number of Clinton fans, as well as a few Republicans, at least two R*n Pau1 advocates and, yes, even Nader had representation.  Some conversations were adversarial, but they were always respectful.  Others were just glad to find someone else who had a similar perspective. All the big topics were touched on.  There was quite a bit of talk on local races, too, which boded well for those interested in more organizing (that would be me).  And, of course, lots of speculation on who should drop out when and who was going to win by what margin in which state.  The room was absolutely humming.

Our biggest surprise came when it was noted that a reporter from the The Post-Tribune had shown up - with a freakin' photographer, no less!  That little gem made me find the nearest chair before my knees gave out. We're still not sure how they found out about it.  Many of the guests were taking pictures of each other with their candidate signs.  Folks with arms around each other's shoulders, big smiles, and lively eyes!

The best part of the evening, in my opinion, was knowing that we were finally going to have our say.  We were standing shoulder to shoulder and using our voices with purpose, with conviction, with conscience. It's our turn, dammit.  We will not be ignored one minute longer.  We will demand a higher standard of each other, ourselves, and our elected representatives, and our nation as a whole. We will restore our tattered Constitution and, in the process, regain a measure of the respect that had once been so abundant.  It's up to us.  Tonight, my neighbors showed me they are eager to begin that daunting task and will not be deterred.