The experience with the bus was fantastic. First, understand this was not a school bus. They got us a great charter bus with a great driver, TV’s and WiFi. My daughter will be jealous as we got to watch her current favorite movie. As I went to get onboard, I ran into my fellow delegate and friend Lauren, who is the Communications Director at Equality Ohio and professional blogger, and her partner Shannon. We left Shannon behind, but I knew I would have one friendly face.
Then I ran into multiple ODP staffers I knew, including Lauren Harmon, but started making new friends as well. The woman sitting behind me was Sandra Wise, a State Central Committeewoman and Member of the Sandusky County Board of Elections, who with her husband, has done some farming. Across the way was State Central Committeeman Dick Kerns, a former millwright, and his wife from Urbana. As the trip went on, I might more new friends including Lupe Williams from Wooster via Puerto Rico, where I spent a few years of my life in the mid 1970's. Jake Young, no relation, and Kevin Bloomfield were on the bus as well. Kevin is the youngest member of our delegation, at age 19 and Jake turned 21 just in time for the fun.
As Will Rogers said “I am not a member of an organized party, I’m a Democrat”. Well, we were somewhat organized. Our bus hit the parking lot at our hotel, followed within 2 minutes by the buses from Cleveland and Dayton. Luckily I beat the half of our delegation that is staying at my hotel to the front desk and delegate check in and managed to unpack, freshen up and head downstairs to start rounding up our Northwest Ohio People for Angela Zimmann, whose campaign I’m working for.
After working the room for Angela, we boarded buses that were over an hour late (yes, we are Democrats after all) for a party at the Mint Museum. I had the good luck to land next to fellow Lucas County Delegate Wade Kapszukiewicz, who is our County Treasurer, the man who led that caucus I was elected at, and more importantly a fellow parent at my son’s school and had a great ride Uptown (the locals call Downtown, Uptown as it is on higher ground) talking the changing demographics of the country and voter suppression. I’m an expert at countering the later, but only knew a few things our treasurer did not and believe me, I learned much.
When we got there, and here’s that disorganized thing again, we got horrible directions (just because they have vest and T-Shirt with the right logo on it doesn’t mean they know where they are sending you was the lesson of the day), but we did get to the party eventually. The Mint Museum is incredible. It has a great mix of art and they were great hosts. There was a photo both for us to pose with silly convention type props and I got a great picture with me, Lauren and Sandra, wearing silly hats, glasses (Bootsy Collins has noting on my glasses), etc. There was great food, fun entertainment and Democrats from about 8 states enjoying each other's company.
On the way back, we ran into Mayor Mark Mallory of Cincinnati. Mark is famous not only for being a good mayor, but for throwing a horrible first pitch (didn’t bring that up) and being a guest on “Undercover Boss”. The group of us asked him about the great dreadlocks wig he wore in part of the episode, but sadly, he doesn’t have it. Mayor Mallory agreed to pose for the picture (attached) with former State Senator, current City Councilman and fellow CWRU law alum Jeff Johnson acting as cameraman. I also got to meet Delegate Melissa Cropper who is the new head of the Ohio Federation of Teachers.
Mind you, I missed another great experience to get the picture with Mayor Mallory. I split up from Sandra and Lauren and Lauren ran into MSNBC Host Melissa Harris-Perry at our next stop, the other hotel for our delegation (keeping this vague for security, as they are concerned enough to have armed security with us). But, my consolation prize was getting to hang out with my friend Mike Zickar who is Wood County Party Chair. There we got to talk to my fellow Methodist "Preacher’s Wife" (Cheri hates that joke), former first lady of Ohio Frances Strickland and of course she brought her husband along for the ride.
After writing out some notes so I can type this up tomorrow, I was happy to call it a great night on Day One of the adventure. More tomorrow (these will probably run a day behind as I want to get all of the events of the day and thanks for cyber tuning in.
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