The second she hopped in the car she asked, rather enthusiastically, "Can we go see Hillary Clinton?
I paused for a second and composed myself, because I didn't want to seem overly harsh; while I have been engaged in the political discourse in recent years and helped Republican candidates my daughter is not nor has she ever expressed an interest in anything political.
I concluded my brief pause and tried to address her question in a decidedly neutral and mature fashion, "What?....No.... No..."
She had a huge smile on her face.
"Bernie Sanders?" she asked.
My heart was breaking. While I've never been outspoken at home my hope was my gentle guidance would guide them to the light.
"I'd rather stay home and punch myself repeatedly than go see Hillary or crazy old man Bernie," I told her with grace and maturity.
She did not relent.
"How about Trump?
I signed. Self flagellation still sounded better.
"I thought about going to Kaisich the other day," I told her, "but it was the middle of the day and I had to work. I didn't know you were interested."
As I talked it through with her, it was clear it wasn't about ideology, she was just eager to go see someone who was running for President of the United States; the ideology did not matter to her she just wanted to be a 'part' of it... whatever it is these days.
I brought her home and stewed on it for a couple of hours and finally went up to her room which she was cleaning her room (not a regular occurrence so perhaps I should be concerned) and told her if she really wanted to go, I could probably cut out of work early on Friday and drive her to UIC.
On Friday I got to school early so I could be at the front of the pickup line. She got to the car shortly after 2:50pm and jumped in.
"You still want to go," I asked.
"Yes," she said with a huge grin on her face.
So off we went, stopping at Walgreen s for cash and Starburst Jelly Beans as we headed out of Crystal Lake.
The drive was just a bit more than two hours; along the way the Google map machine was nice enough to give us a tour of some of the sketchy areas of the city as it tried to save us seven minutes.
Someone needs to invent a bad neighborhood app... something along the lines of
As we drove closer to the city, the gravity of my decision was becoming clear.
"Look... three helicopters," I observed.
Tess corrected me, "No Dad... four."
We exited 290 around 5pm at Racine and Chicago's Finest promptly directed us away from the Pavilion and what I had perceived to be the parking area.
I'm not a city guy. It makes me nervous for a lot of reasons which I won't go into here, but much of it has to do with liking to know where I am going. And parts of the City of Chicago right now are really really bad so I wanted to make sure we did not end up anywhere the marginally bad areas.
We were able to find parking pretty quickly and started walking towards the pavilion. As we walked North on Morgan St over 290 we could see an incredibly long line that was either folks waiting to get in or protesters. We walked and followed the line and saw that there were a few people here and there that were holding tickets to the event so I was left with the assumption that it was the line, plus it was the direction that the authorities were herding us.
As we reached the end of the line, which was about a half mile long snaking inbetween campus buildings
While everyone in the line was peaceful and respectful, I sensed an overall discomfort. Some of the line holders were obviously not there to get in and hear Donald Trump speak. Some organization had distributed and a number of people were holding up signs about not believing the liberal media's lies. Some were openly carrying Sanders signs."I don't see anyone supporting Hillary," Tesssa observed.
I grinned inside.
As the line wound through the walks between the UIC College of Education and UIC Theater it was clear that there were too many people, we were not getting in, and if we got in it was going to be ugly. I listened to people around me and was surprised with the conversation; some people I had pegged as protesters were supporters and others I had pegged as supporters were protesters.
Shortly after 6pm the line started moving in earnest... a guy dressed as a Catholic Bishop with large hands walked by; the symbolism was lost on me.
As we approached Congress where the line proceeded west an African American woman approached my daughter and mumbled something about 38 million... what we will never know... some kids behind us I had pegged as protesters, but were supporters asked me what she had said.
I turned and smiled, "I have no idea... and I don't think she does either."
A Latino woman walked by us with two young kids and a sign that said something about white privilege; the students in line behind us scolded her for bringing her kids out.
Across the street another group of students marched; one carrying a Mexican flag and another a rally vulgar cartoonist banner showing Mr. Trumps face grotesquely disfigured.
Another protester held a sign asking men to expose their genitalia. I declined politely.
Right before we made the turn on to Congress several police came by and informed us that they were not letting anyone else in. We stayed in line for a couple of minutes more; we'd been driving or standing in line for almost four hours at that point.
As the line dispersed many headed towards the corner of Racine and Congress, I thought about it for a minute but then thought better. We headed back towards are car, stopping to sit down at a Subway near our parking lot for a sandwich before we hit the road.
As I was eating I jumped on Facebook and saw that the event had been cancelled and that fights were breaking out.
We headed to the car and as we climbed in I loaded up the live CNN feed.
"Oh my gosh... that's the guy that was in front of us. The guy that complimented my shoes," Tessa told me.
I looked at the screen... he was exchanging punches with someone.
So sad.
No comments:
Post a Comment