Witnessing History - A Future President

This week, I decided to document my personal “Witness to History” for #52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks. 

I witnessed history in a small way. In early 2008, Barack Obama planned a rally in Minneapolis. The race was still undecided - would he get the nomination, or would Hillary Clinton? At the last minute, I decided I wanted to attend, so I ran over to Obama headquarters at lunchtime to get the free tickets — except they were all gone. I was told I could attend if I volunteered. So, I signed up to volunteer, along with signing up my son Eric. (I didn’t ask him first, but he was okay with it.)

The following day, we drove to Target Center. We came in from the west side, so we had no view of the crowds that had started lining up very early in the morning. The lines continued to grow - the doors didn’t open until 1:30. It was a typical, frigid Minnesota day. Eric and I were assigned to staff the door to keep people out and check tickets as they filed in. It was a fun job - we saw several “famous” people like R.T. Rybak, David Plouffe, and other local Dems. The crowds were cold, excited, and very well-behaved. 

We checked tickets and kept the lines moving when they opened the doors. Then, we were told to grab seats. We ended up sitting up pretty far from the stage, but Target Center was packed - some 20,000 people. And Obama didn’t fail the crowd. It was amazing!!! When it was over, we were asked to come backstage and get a group photo of the volunteers. So we gathered and took a picture. We started seeing guys in suits with those tell-tale earpieces and the pins on their lapels. What was going on?

And then it happened - Barack Obama himself walked into the room. He gave a short little thank you speech and shook our hands. I got a couple of pictures which I’m sad to say have long ago disappeared on an old phone. Eric and I were both excited to have shaken the hand of a future president (we were sure of that by then.)

Many of the news reports talked about the youthfulness of the crowd. And yes, there were a lot of young people there. But what I noticed was the crowd’s diversity - all ages, all races and nationalities, men and women. There were veterans, men in uniform, whole families, and senior citizens with walkers. And they all had something in common - an excitement over being there and sharing a fantastic, positive attitude. It was a wonderful day for all.

 And that was my Witness to History.