Yesterday, our Sociology faculty had a teaching workshop in the morning. Afterwards, three of us decided to get Obama tickets for his appearance at our university - Indiana University Southeast in New Albany which is just across the river from Louisville, KY. which had just been announced for the following day.
The event was to be held in our largest place - the gymnasium which holds nearly 3,700. Chelsea Clinton had appeared weeks earlier but she was put into a smaller room that probably holds several hundred at most. I missed the event but even Obama supporters had high praise for Chelsea - she had a strong command of facts and issues.
Back to Obama after the jump.
We heard tickets might still be available downtown at Obama headquarters. Our university is really outside the city in a previous cow pasture - but it is a nice place. As we are leaving campus we hear we can get tickets on-line. Sara’s office is closest so we enter cyberspace from her portal. She gets a ticket. Ben jumps through the portal next while I go to my office for that portal.
LOCKED OUT! All on-line tickets are gone - Ben and I have nothing.
We jump in my car and head to downtown New Albany and Obama headquarters. They had a few tickets left so Ben and I get two each - that was a mistake but we hated to be greedy and to be honest I had no one to give my second ticket since my better half had a conference she could not skip out on to attend the event.
I downloaded and cleaned my camera’s memory card and got extra batteries. We were told that even with tickets we might want to show up 2 or 3 hours early to get a seat. I put student papers in a folder in case things got boring waiting for our next President to arrive.
Checking my email, there was an email from a Sociology student wanting tickets for the event. I had already given my extra ticket to a retired colleague and lifelong diehard Democrat. So, I didn’t have an extra ticket - just my ticket.
Well, to make a short story longer, I thought long and hard. I will definitely vote in the primary and for Obama. My student is young and in the demographic group least likely to vote. Maybe seeing Obama would cinch her vote. But I really wanted to see and take photos of the crowd - hey, I’m a sociologist - I watch people as much as the caged animals when I go to the zoo.
I looked at my camera. Then looked out the window at my back yard that needed cleaning up before Saturday’s end of year party for my students. I called my student and told her I had a ticket for her that should could pick up at the department’s office. Then I called our secretary and told her a ticket was next to the phone on my desk and that a student would be by shorting to pick it up. Then I got to work on the back yard.
Hopefully Obama will visit Southern Indiana again in the next week. Or maybe he will make a visit across the river here in Louisville to put down a Derby bet. Or maybe I’ll just have to watch him on TV as he takes the oath of office.
Here is a link to the story with photos of the event.