The following is a brief roundup of the DKos Asheville Voter Registration Project's fifth outing. We've been setting up every Tuesday for the last five weeks at Earth Fare, a natural food store at Westgate Shopping Center in Asheville. We have a nice spot on the patio outside the store. This week with no icy wind and much more moderate temps. Oh it was cold alright, just not stupid cold. Back to having three of us was great. LamontCranston, David and Myself received many thumbs up and "thank you's" from passers by and shoppers and more than a few questions as to why we were doing this now. "Didn't we just have an election?". We officially re-registered one voter and took advantage of the interaction to do some Daily Kos evangelism. And here is a tease for next week. It involves llamas!
If you've missed any of our last four diaries describing our registration project's weekly experiences, you can find the fun here at DKos Asheville. Please join us below the orange squiggle of Democracy for this weeks edition.
LamontCranston, our new Salvation Army bell ringer friend, randallt and davehouck, Asheville 11/19/2013
Intrepid Kossacks LamontCranston, davehouck and randallt worked valiantly this week in much nicer weather to provide a community service with DKos Asheville's voter registration project. Accompanied by the gentle bell ringing of a new Salvation Army worker, the three Kossacks enjoyed each other's company while talking politics, internet tech, llamas and hot water heaters. Once again the well wishes were in abundance with many folks stopping to assure the crew that they were registered and to thank them for their efforts and citizenship. They managed to re-register one voter this Tuesday.
I arrived early today, went inside the store for some lunch and came back out to find David open for business. We had just settled in when a man came out of the store yelling at a store manager who was following him. The manager said "Did you put it back?" And the guy yelled back angrily, "Yes I did! Go look for yourself!". The manager then followed the guy down the sidewalk while videoing him. We were guessing a shoplifting encounter but never learned the details. Nice adrenalin boost to get us going!
LC arrived shortly after and we spent the next three hours trying to save the world one voter registration at a time. The traffic was pretty light all day but we had a great time greeting people, smiling and offering assistance. Our new Salvation Army bell ringer was a delightful man who not only appreciated what we were doing but had also heard about Daily Kos. I invited him to check out the place and and asked him to join to find community that might share many of his interests. He promised stop in for a visit. I think we need some DK business cards or something.
My favorite encounter was with a WWII veteran and his lovely wife. He was using a walker but was plenty spry and when I approached him to say hello, thank him for his service and read more closely the emblem on his baseball cap, he turned with a twinkle in his eye and said, "Well thank you young man". Not often called that anymore! His cap read WWII Amphibious Assault. When I served in the Navy, I was on the USS Guadalcanal, LPH-7, which was an Amphibious Helicopter Assault ship. I mentioned it and he lit right up with a big smile and told me he knew of that ship and thanked me for my service. I then told him I moved onto submarines after that. He laughed, shook his head and said "Well I'm not that crazy!" I think I made his day.
Our one actual customer today was a man who approached us with the question of whether or not he had to re-register with his new address. We assured him this was so and he gladly jumped at the chance. "Thank you so much for doing this guys! Now I don't have to worry about it. One more thing off my list." During our conversation we discovered that we were both ex-pat Okies. We had both attended Northeastern State College in Tahlequah and had both grown up with Indian friends. David then mentioned Ojibwa's great diary today on the Cherokee after the removal to Oklahoma. That led to a discussion about Daily Kos. Our guest thought that sounded familiar and when David showed him the site, he said "Oh yeah, I remember that place! I used to go there all the time to get the real story behind what the news was saying. I kind of got out of politics though. Wow, it's still around." We invited him back, he said he would visit for sure and thanked us for providing this service.
So there you go. If you are in the area, please consider coming out to help next Tuesday and show people that Democracy can't sleep, every vote counts and all campaigns started yesterday.
And stay tuned for llamas........