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On August 4th, President Obama's 49th birthday, Mrs. Dragon and I participated in an OFA phone banking event to GOTV here in Indiana. What made the experience unique and unforgettable was that the event was held in the ancestral home of the President's mother, Ann Dunham.
In the tiny farming community of Kempton, Indiana, just 13 miles from the southern edge of Kokomo where I live, stands the Dunham House. As it turns out, the house was the home of several generations of President Obama's great-grandparents on his mother's side.
Our host was the owner of the house, Shawn Clements, a gracious, intelligent, and knowledgeable young man, and he gave us a tour of the house and a history lesson before we started phone calling. A report of that day can be found here on the OFA website.
I will not relate all the history here, but I will instead link you to the Dunham House website, which is excellent and has the entire history on it. The President visited the house on May 3, 2008, during his campaign.
One interesting story is that he may not have been the only President to be there. As Clements relates in my transcript from this YouTube video, it is likely Grover Cleveland visited it years before. One day, while he was working on restoring the home,
A lady came to the door and introduced herself, and she said, "This is just a great old house. I used to come here when I was a little girl." She was probably in her mid-eighties or so, and she said, "I've spent the night here, and Dr. Dunham was my doctor and he delivered me" and all that kind of thing. And I said, "Well, I haven't heard about Dr. Dunham." And she said, "Oh, well there were two of them. There was Wilbur Dunham and Grover Dunham." And she said, "Now Grover Dunham, his name was Grover Cleveland Dunham." And I said, "That's interesting; he must have been named after the President." And she said, "Oh, absolutely, and he should have been because President Grover Cleveland spent the night in this house or visited this house, and knew Riley Dunham pretty well from what we understand. That's always been passed down."
I've talked to some family members and some secretaries and people who worked for Dr. Dunham and they said "Oh, that was very well known for years and years and years"--as if that was normal conversation. And somewhere--if anybody can ever find it that would be great--allegedly there's a picture of Grover Cleveland sitting on my front porch, and if anybody can find that, I'd love to have a copy of that.
So that is the local legend here--that there is already a president that has passed through here. With Riley Dunham being a Democrat in the [Indiana] General Assembly, maybe there was something with that because Cleveland was beaten by and then turned around and defeated [Benjamin] Harrison, President Harrison from Indiana, so maybe Riley had some work to do with that.
It was a fascinating lesson and a memorable day. But there's a downside. Mr. Clements has endured threats and vandalism because of the home's link to the President. Even more disgusting is the reaction of some to his marvelous project for feeding the hungry as outlined in this video clip of a news story that appeared on Channel 8, WISH-TV, in Indianapolis:
My reaction is to want to work even harder for Democrats in this fall's election. I hope it's yours, too.
Before I go on to tonight's Top Comments, I am going to use this space to say Ta Ta For Now. I haven't been pulling my weight on the Top Comments team or at DK. Now that school is in session, I am crazy busy. In addition to teaching all day, I officiate football during the week and fall baseball on the weekends, and I write sports as a stringer for the local paper on Friday nights. I am also trying to do some door knocking for OFA. Maybe later I can get back in the swing of things.
So, many thanks to the TC folks (they're the greatest in my book), and especially to sardonyx, who helped me with Top Mojo and much more. I'll miss you guys (although I will visit sometimes and pass out recs and mojo), and, as Ahnold said in The Terminator, "Ah'll be back."
Check out tonight's Top Comments and Top Mojo below.
TOP COMMENTS
From Otteray Scribe:
In an extended discussion of the size of the crowd at Glenbeckiscam, NCrissieB responded to one of my comments, resulting in an epic coffee spew in her story Morning Feature: Eat the Poor? (Ask Ms. Crissie).
From JanF:
Also in NCrissieB's Sunday Morning Feature, addisnana adds this comment to the discussion about empathy: "Before you can walk a mile in someone else's shoes you must first remove your own shoes. That seems to be the hardest part of the exercise."
From bronte17:
From BeninSC is this thoughtful comment in pucklady's diary No puzzle Sunday: pucklady meltdown edition. Ben has an entire thread of erudite thoughts.
From phonegery:
This thread begun by oxfdblue sheds light on the real size of the crowd in bernardpliers's Saturday diary Beck's EPIC FAIL, Less Than 100,000 Turn Out. Note great comments by Demi Moaned, chrississippi, grannyhelen, skippy, and JekyllnHyde.
From sardonyx:
In teacherken's excellent diary Problems with the use of Student Test Scores to Evaluate Teachers, grimjc also writes from the perspective of a teacher in the comment Defining the value of schools.
From your humble diarist:
I liked democracy inaction's reaction to JCPOK's wonderful diary I got Obama's Back at Starbucks this Morning.
Also, primarydoc nails it with this comment in CynthiaGee's recommended diary Why has Glenn Beck replaced Ronald McDonald in Central PA?
TOP MOJO
Tonight's Top Mojo is brought to you by the inimitable and estimable sardonyx, who saved you from your diarist's ineptitude. (Thanks to all the other TC Kossacks who offered to help!)
Top Mojo (cskendrick/sardonyx-style) excluding search-identifiable tip jars, first diary comments, and various pooties:
1) Those are only the early estimates by Demi Moaned — 206
2) It Stops Here, It Stops NOW!!! by serrano — 138
3) CBS News came up with about the same by oxfdblue — 134
4) Good for you. we must all do it. by Tulips — 133
5) studies have shown that eating McD's and watching by primarydoc — 117
6) Join the movement to Turn Off Fox. by StepLeftStepForward — 107
7) Some around here... by Land of Enchantment — 107
8) Eh, the Supreme Court will stop the counting. by chrississippi — 95
9) A Beck University Graduate by JekyllnHyde — 94
10) In honor of this President, and of MLK by Diogenes2008 — 83
11) right on the money by the national gadfly — 80
12) The Diarist Gets This Award by JekyllnHyde — 74
13) If this is happening in PUBLIC places, by RhodaA — 68
14) Baked just for you! by Patch Adam — 68
15) Cutting off the "racist fringe" by notrouble — 61
16) I also love these quotes by Diogenes2008 — 59
17) It was (briefly) mentioned in the CBS news, and by Patric Juillet — 58
18) A thousand virtual recs to you. nt by NWTerriD — 58
19) It Is A Joke, I Lived For 15 Years On Capital by webranding — 57
20) You are my Hero...it takes guts to by jojothecat — 57
21) Two days ago by Land of Enchantment — 56
22) Here are some bonus pics by casperr — 56
23) IMHO the Mural is a much better "I Have a Dream" by dmhlt 66 — 52
24) They did not get him of the air. HOWEVER, by StepLeftStepForward — 52
25) To be fair, it is a LITTLE insensitive to build a by Spider Stumbled — 52
26) alright, by jarnormalchicken — 51
27) Thanks for the info. I hadn't seen this by angry marmot — 51
28) I think we all need to most concerned about by soccergrandmom — 50
29) Recommending this post restores honor to DKos by Trix — 49
30) Oh Sure by JekyllnHyde — 49
Top Mojo with No Exclusions:
1) Tip Jar by JCPOK — 507
2) Tip Jar by CynthiaGee — 492
3) Tips For Epic Fail by bernardpliers — 291
4) Tip Jar by covertaccess — 266
5) Tip Jar by millwx — 249
6) Tip Jar by qua — 231
7) Tip Jar by Sandy on Signal — 208
8) Those are only the early estimates by Demi Moaned — 206
9) Tip Jar by blackwaterdog — 197
10) Tip Jar by unspeakable — 196
11) Tip Jar by casperr — 181
12) Tip Jar by mimi — 151
13) You want to concentrate on the good? by KingOneEye — 141
14) It Stops Here, It Stops NOW!!! by serrano — 138
15) CBS News came up with about the same by oxfdblue — 134
16) Good for you. we must all do it. by Tulips — 133
17) studies have shown that eating McD's and watching by primarydoc — 117
18) tips by whoknu — 114
19) Join the movement to Turn Off Fox. by StepLeftStepForward — 107
20) Some around here... by Land of Enchantment — 107
21) Help Pakistan! by JaxDem — 102
22) Tip Jar by niaman — 101
23) Eh, the Supreme Court will stop the counting. by chrississippi — 95
24) A Beck University Graduate by JekyllnHyde — 94
25) TIPS by Trix — 93
26) In honor of this President, and of MLK by Diogenes2008 — 83
27) right on the money by the national gadfly — 80
28) The Diarist Gets This Award by JekyllnHyde — 74
29) If this is happening in PUBLIC places, by RhodaA — 68
30) Baked just for you! by Patch Adam — 68