Kamala Came To Greensboro, And We All Partied

by mamajo2k

Community

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Saturday, Sep. 14, 2024 Saturday, Sep. 14, 2024 at 4:54:59pm PDT

I have been volunteering for presidential campaigns since 1992… Bill Clinton’s was my first campaign… Health reasons kept me from volunteering for Obama’s 2 campaigns… In 2016, I volunteered for Hillary. I thought I had seen excitement. I was wrong…

Last week I got my first email that Kamala was coming to Greensboro… I quickly responded to get on the list to attend…the goal was to get attendance to 20,000... Monday, I received a call from Kamala’s campaign… They took my info, and sent me a link to follow to finish sign up… Oh No!! I have a flip phone and cannot respond that way… I made a call to our Dem HQ, was given the name of our coordinator, called him, and got the info I needed to follow up… I also got the invite sent to my friend L… Got my confirmations, and was ready to go on Thursday… Got another confirmation call on Weds… Was given final details, times, and parking instructions… I am mobility impaired, so HC parking is essential for me… Doors to open at 3pm...

Got several more emails, instructions, and pep talks from the campaign every day… Finally, Thursday arrived… My friend L came to the house about 11am, and we left in my van, we picked a drive-thru to get a quick lunch and headed to Greensboro… It is about a 30 minute drive for us...

To keep traffic around the Coliseum to a minimum, there were several off-site parking places, and shuttle service provided… We parked on site, and were unloading my wheelchair, when a vendor selling campaign buttons waved at us… We waved back and motioned her over to us… I chose the 3-fer I wanted, and L chose her 3… we buttoned up and headed for the line, which was pleasingly short at that time… I stopped at the tables with t-shirts and hats to shop… Got my husband a hat (they were going fast), and looked at the T-shirts… I did not want to carry a shirt around all day, so I decided that I would shop after the rally for my gear…

We went up the ramp and got in our line…Lines were divided out so we with access needs were in a special line, since we would be seated in what they called the ADA section... the crowd in line was excited and everyone was happy and chatting, checking out each others’ shirts and gear, telling stories of their excitement and campaign experiences... It was now just after 12 noon… The campaign had set up free hotdogs, ice cream, and drinks for everyone… Volunteers were going around passing out bottles of water, other volunteers were going around signing up volunteers for future campaign work, still others were going around greeting us, and thanking us for coming…

I took a few pictures and texted them to friends… At 1:30 they started clearing us to go to the next area… we had to show our emailed confirmations as our ticket… my friend showed hers, and I showed the text confirmation I had received… Again, inside there were 2 areas… We were in the indoor parking for show trailers and limos… there were those bike rails for a mouse maze to the mags… we were near the wall, and the others were in the back… there were about 5 different door areas to flow the traffic into around the facility… This was ours...

Again, we were more excited at one step closer… About 1:45, a DJ began setting up in the holding area… he started playing at 2:15, and everyone was cheering, and dancing… The party had officially begun…

I was reading t-shirts, looking at costumes and so many happy people… All along, volunteers were still handing out water…

At exactly 3pm, the Secret Service and the TSA opened the metal detectors and started filtering us thru… Those in the regular lines were filtered thru the mouse maze at 25 or 30 at a time…

We cleared the security check and headed inside… There is an elevator for access to our level, and it is so small it holds one wheelchair and 1 person at a time… We got to our area in the arena at a little after 3:30… We were behind and to the left of the stage… Oh Well, still good seats… There were no seats in the floor level in front of the stage, all standing, there were cameras and lighting on the left… floor level would hold about 2k, plus…

The DJ moved his show to the arena, and once again, everyone was singing, dancing in the seats, dancing in the aisles, and getting to know their neighbors…

As seats filled, I noticed blinking lights on the other side… A lady came up behind me with those flashing bracelets… I asked where she got them, and she smiled and handed me one… I showed my friend L, and she went into the hallway to find one, but did not… Later someone with a bag of them came around and made sure everyone who wanted one got one… As we turned them on, they were all synced with the music, so we all had our own little light show around the arena…

At a little after 6pm, the attention went to the stage… The first speaker was Mo Green, our candidate for the Superintendent of Schools… He is a well qualified, great guy… The sound was awful, it reverberated and was at times unintelligible… I resorted to reading lips on the Diamond Vision screens around us...Even that was not synched with the speaker... Several others running for office spoke…

The country duo Brothers Osborne played a set for us…

They were followed a bit later by Josh Stein, our current AG, and candidate for Gov… He is leading the polls against our horrible current Lt Gov, who I won’t name here… Josh got the crowd going… The excitement kept building…

Then came our very popular Gov Roy Cooper… He was on Kamala’s short list…

Kathy Manning is my current Rep… She is wonderful… Her district was eliminated by redistricting, and she is, sadly, not running for re-election…

The energy levels now were off the charts… An 18yo first time voter came out and introduced Kamala… The crowd went crazy… Kamal walked and the already loud crowd went wild… The noise from the cheering was louder than anything I have ever heard before, and I have been to some loud concerts in my day… It was the kind of cheering you can feel vibrate your lungs… Standing ovation!!! When the crowd finally calmed down, she began to speak…