Running for Obama

Wearing three Obama buttons, I raced through the streets of Philadelphia, trying to get to the Broad Street subway. I couln't help thinking that it would have been twistedly funny and Philly-typical if I got mugged with all that flair on.
Instead, I got kids sincerely asking for them. Maybe there's hope for the future after all, or at least until they get to junior high.
I had spent hours knocking on doors, putting voting information on people's doors, and exhorting them to vote. But truthfully, my assigned north of North Philly neighborhood was a cakewalk. Working class black. By the afternoon, many who worked early shifts had come home, and said they had voted just after dawn that day when the polls opened.
The voting was so lopsided that I began to fear that I was operating in a bubble, that in the suburbs all around the city everyone was voting McCain. I'd probably get a big surprise when I turned on the TV.
Instead I made it to my cousin's field office to support him; he had been up since four am along with a lot of young mostly white volunteers. I missed the bus to Princeton we volunteers came on, so I ran 14 blocks to the subway, caught a train downtown to Trenton, a train to Princeton Junction, and finally a cab to the polls where I finally voted at 7:20 pm.
The polls closed at eight. I had just helped make history - by 40 minutes.