Happy for the Presidential Hassle

Chip (Kanha's dad) didn't want to use the two tickets he bought (for $250 each...) because he didn't want to deal with the hassle -- the bumper to bumper traffic, the long lines, the jostling people.  So he gave away the tickets to see the President in the flesh, to Kanha and me.

He had it mostly right -- the traffic was slow getting over to Southern Maine Community College, we waited in line, on a sunny but briskly windy Maine March afternoon, for an hour and a half, we got jostled a lot by the 1699 other people crammed into the athletic center, all standing around on the basketball floor waiting to hear -- and see -- President Obama.  And Chip even missed a few of the not-so-pleasant details -- the coffee and hot chocolate promised while we shivered on line turned out to be water, or beer or wine you could pay for, each person's standing spot was awarded in order of arrival so if you, a short person -- read: 11 year old Kanha -- arrived just a few minutes after Jane Q. BasketballPlayer -- read: the 6 foot tall woman claiming the space just in front of us -- you were basically out-of-luck to be able to see much of anything.  Plus it was a short payoff for a lot of waiting -- a 30 minute stump speech (an exact repeat of what I heard reported from Burlington VT  as we drove home) out of a four hour outing.

the President in person

But for me it was worth it, and hopefully, one day at least, for Kanha too.  While driving to the event, I found myself ruminating to her that, even coming from a highly political Democratic family, I had never seen a President "in the flesh" while in office before.  (I did shake candidate Bill Clinton's hand when I was in graduate school at the Kennedy School although I realized I was hardly unique when I overheard 3 people in the Obama line, all from different groups of friends, recount their own stories of getting a "Bubba" handshake during his time in the presidential limelight.  Perhaps he really did personally shake the hand of everyone who voted for him in the New Hampshire primary...) 

I loved being in the same room as Barack Obama, albeit a very very large room -- our first African-American president, a man of brains and commitment (if a bit too strong of a penchant to compromise), a man I indeed would like to have a beer with AND feel reassured that he is leading our country.  

And I loved taking Kanha, loved knowing that, from then on, she could say she had been to see a President speak.  Never mind she got very tired and a bit bored, never mind she had to jump up or have me lift her a bit to actually see him, never mind she found it more fun to get her picture taken next to the Obama cardboard cut-out outside.  

Kanha with the President -- a sideways view

Having been born in a country where power hungry men, in the name of egalitarianism, had destroyed her ancestors, their land, and their way of life, she had had the chance to hear the words, in person, of a man who stands, in my opinion, fully and completely for exactly the opposite.  For both of us, I think it was worth the hassle.