Between Milwaukee and Minneapolis
Saturday, October 11th, 2008
Young voters registered yesterday – 18,930
Miles travelled today – 336
2:37 pm – Somewhere between Milwaukee and Minneapolis
We have reached that point in the electoral process, I think, where you could not watch any TV station in the country for an hour without some mention of one or both of the presidential candidates. The news networks' standard riveting ticker headlines ("Chicago Club found haunted") now also carry mundane campaign updates ("Palin arrives in Missouri"). And it's hard to drive more than a mile or two of highway without seeing a yard sign for one candidate or another. We are, in short, in the all-encompassing season of the American campaign where politics cannot be ignored.
We saw this first hand at a refueling stop this afternoon. The bus pulled in at one of those truck-stops/megastores that speckle the interstates of Wisconsin and Minnesota: the kind of place where a single building contains a restaurant, slot machines, showers, bathrooms, a convenience store, and a 'souvenir shop' filled with porcelain lawn creatures and John Deere paraphernalia. We opened the bus door, prepared to dash inside to find something irresistibly tacky to buy, and were immediately assaulted by two teenagers and a band. The band, The Urgency, wanted to hand off a demo CD and the teenagers - one of whose eighteenth birthday was today - wanted to register to vote.
"We were at the McDonald's and we saw the bus and we wanted to get a picture and it's his birthday," the younger of the two teens said, in what was basically a single breath.
He explained how they sometimes see tour busses pass through when they are at the McDonald's and had seen Nelly's bus and Beyonce's bus and well, a bunch of other busses, and how it was worthwhile to run across and see who had come into town. This bus looked a lot better than the others though.
The band, meanwhile, pointed out that we used to work out with MTV and they had just done something with MTV and could they hand us a demo CD because, you know, you never know...
I had been napping for the hour before we stopped and the sudden rush of strangers and conversation was baffling to me, as if I had rolled out of bed to find myself on the floor of the New York stock exchange surrounded by heavily caffeinated traders screaming buy and sell.
The van, our satellite vehicle, stayed an hour behind us and its passengers were not subjected to this spontaneous outpouring of enthusiasm. Instead, they visited a hedgehog show in Milwaukee. A hedgehog show? you ask. Yes... I don't quite understand either. A quick googling confirms that such shows exist and are sanctioned by the International Hedgehog Association (IHA). Disappointingly, I didn't see the thing, so I am left to speculate.
But the mere absence of knowledge or personal experience has never dissuaded me from reporting, so I can say with conviction that the show took place in a dug out cave deep in the recesses of a network of tunnels under Milwaukee and was run by gnomes. The winning hedgehog was small, adorable, and sang a stirring rendition of 'God Bless America.' Miss Hedgehog Congeniality did a very nice public service announcement for us, but the tape was lost. Everyone was already registered and concerned with the candidates' stances on gardening.
They too are focused on the election.
Young voters registered yesterday – 18,930
Miles travelled today – 336
2:37 pm – Somewhere between Milwaukee and Minneapolis
We have reached that point in the electoral process, I think, where you could not watch any TV station in the country for an hour without some mention of one or both of the presidential candidates. The news networks' standard riveting ticker headlines ("Chicago Club found haunted") now also carry mundane campaign updates ("Palin arrives in Missouri"). And it's hard to drive more than a mile or two of highway without seeing a yard sign for one candidate or another. We are, in short, in the all-encompassing season of the American campaign where politics cannot be ignored.
We saw this first hand at a refueling stop this afternoon. The bus pulled in at one of those truck-stops/megastores that speckle the interstates of Wisconsin and Minnesota: the kind of place where a single building contains a restaurant, slot machines, showers, bathrooms, a convenience store, and a 'souvenir shop' filled with porcelain lawn creatures and John Deere paraphernalia. We opened the bus door, prepared to dash inside to find something irresistibly tacky to buy, and were immediately assaulted by two teenagers and a band. The band, The Urgency, wanted to hand off a demo CD and the teenagers - one of whose eighteenth birthday was today - wanted to register to vote.
"We were at the McDonald's and we saw the bus and we wanted to get a picture and it's his birthday," the younger of the two teens said, in what was basically a single breath.
He explained how they sometimes see tour busses pass through when they are at the McDonald's and had seen Nelly's bus and Beyonce's bus and well, a bunch of other busses, and how it was worthwhile to run across and see who had come into town. This bus looked a lot better than the others though.
The band, meanwhile, pointed out that we used to work out with MTV and they had just done something with MTV and could they hand us a demo CD because, you know, you never know...
I had been napping for the hour before we stopped and the sudden rush of strangers and conversation was baffling to me, as if I had rolled out of bed to find myself on the floor of the New York stock exchange surrounded by heavily caffeinated traders screaming buy and sell.
The van, our satellite vehicle, stayed an hour behind us and its passengers were not subjected to this spontaneous outpouring of enthusiasm. Instead, they visited a hedgehog show in Milwaukee. A hedgehog show? you ask. Yes... I don't quite understand either. A quick googling confirms that such shows exist and are sanctioned by the International Hedgehog Association (IHA). Disappointingly, I didn't see the thing, so I am left to speculate.
But the mere absence of knowledge or personal experience has never dissuaded me from reporting, so I can say with conviction that the show took place in a dug out cave deep in the recesses of a network of tunnels under Milwaukee and was run by gnomes. The winning hedgehog was small, adorable, and sang a stirring rendition of 'God Bless America.' Miss Hedgehog Congeniality did a very nice public service announcement for us, but the tape was lost. Everyone was already registered and concerned with the candidates' stances on gardening.
They too are focused on the election.
--Nick Brown
Labels: road trip
posted by Nick Brown at 4:13 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home