My Steak Fry Essay

[sugargoose]

Old news by now, but I thought I'd share my notes that I passed on to family, friends, and meetup folks who couldn't make it so they could experience it vicariously. The pics won't show, but hope you can get the gist without them. Also I changed Names to Initials

-------Original Message-------

Date: Monday, September 15, 2003 10:15:25 PM
Subject: My Exciting News for the Week


I just got back from Senator Harkin's 26th Annual Steak Fry in Indianola Iowa and wanted to tell you all about it....

I've been working with the Howard Dean campaign and through that networking ended up with an invitation to the Steak Fry. I didn't feel like I had enough time to plan and wasn't sure I wanted to spend the gas money, but it dawned on me I would hate myself forever if I didn't go. I was able to join a bus group from Oklahoma and I'm so very glad!

I worked until 1am on Thursday to get all my ducks in a row so I could leave on Friday. My usual subs at work were all out on Friday, so I had to go in for a couple of hours to train someone to cover for me. Then I hit the road at about 10am. I got some buttons made on the way, in Hill City, to pass out on the bus. (I did save back one for my friend, A!) I spent most of the road time panicking that my car would break down and I'd miss the trip, but I ended up getting to Wichita at the meeting point about an hour early. I read the new Al Franken book while I waited for the bus. By the way, you MUST read it. It was 200% better than I expected and my expectations were very high. I finished it on the bus ride up to Iowa. It's called Lies & the Lying Liars who Tell Them. Buy Borrow or Steal it ASAP.

The bus was a big purple Rocky Mountain Tours with wildly colorful seats that were not that comfortable after so many hours. The group from Oklahoma was so incredibly friendly and thanked me for joining them, even though I was the one getting the favor. I was immediately handed a peice of paper with the words to OKLAHOMA the song on it. These had to be memorized, according to BL. I talked with a woman formed wholly from joy that wanted me for a grand-daughter, so of course I loved her at once. (I gave her the Franken book when I was done since she was far down on the list to get it at the library) We got to our hotel at about 11pm and they checked us in one at a time. I was in bed by midnight but lay there wondering what I would say if I met Howard Dean and should I give him a button??

Early Saturday morning I headed to the Country Kitchen next door for breakfast. I walked over with HV, a lawyer who had served in WWII and had performed Honor Guard for FDR's funeral. He gave me an essay he had written comparing the war style used by the current administration as compared to Eisenhower, whom he admired a great deal. We talked politics over breakfast and I learned so much about how his life had been enriched by the policies started by FDR. His father died when he was young and the programs enabled he and his siblings to stay with their mother rather than be turned over out of necessity from poverty, and they also gave him an opportunity to get into West Point. He has done so much good and was fascinating to talk to.

At 9am we got on the bus and headed to the Dean headquarters in Des Moines. We got to work making signs and calling voters and filming commercials of us doing cheers and singing Oklahoma and making testimonials. We all wore shirts that said Oklahomans for Dean. The picture of me is when I was working the phone......the young man sitting on the floor in the photo is B. He is from MD and just graduated college and moved to OKC to volunteer for Dean full time. I looked up when I heard people singing Oklahoma again and saw that BL (see picture) had spotted and grabbed our man so that he could hear us sing. We were having a great time. Howard Dean had just stopped by to use the restroom but ended up visiting with us and letting us take lots of pictures before he headed out to do more campaigning.

Most of the group went to lunch, but I was not yet hungry and also wanted to keep an eye out for my brother who lives in Iowa and planned to come meet me at the headquarters. He arrived just in time to join us to go to the rally sight where we stuck signs along the road and waited for Howard to show up. True to form, D could only handle a few minutes with nothing to do and thus wandered off and missed the real rally. There were hundreds of people there in the pouring rain. Howard Dean came and stood on a table and gave a little speech. He said we were his supporters and already had heard the stump speech, so we got an insider's speech. Honestly, it was very similar to the regular speech but it was cool that he took time to make us feel like insiders. He also listed off how many people were from the 16 states there to support him, including AK!! It was amazing! We did a lot of laughing and screaming instead of the cheers we had practiced.

After that we trailed along the muddy roadside, passing the traffic jammed cars waiting to get into the Steak Fry. Apparently, 7500 people bought tickets in advance and there were more sold at the door, despite the terrible weather. We wore bright orange shirts that said, "Hey Harkin! These steaks are DEAN-licious!" on the front, and "I believe in Dean!" on the back. It wasn't long before my birkenstocks were filled with mud and it grossed me out, but it was worth it.

There was no security to enter. That surprised me.

The steaks were very picnic-like, but the real menu was the speakers. Each of the 6 candidates in attendance gave a really wonderful speech. Of course, Lieberman was not there to throw a wrench in the harmony. Also, I guess Sharpton cannot afford to travel. Gephardt was there, but left before speaking. So we heard Carol Mosley Braun, John Kerry, John Edwards, Howard Dean, Dennis Kucinich, and Bob Graham. They were all good, but Dean got by far the loudest response, mostly because he had the most people there. He had to tell us to stop since it cut into his time.

After the speeches there was a very short break and then Ruth Harkin introduced Tom Harkin, who introduced Bill Clinton. Bill gave a truly wonderful speech and the crowd was mesmerized. I've found that no matter what people think of his policies, presidency, or extra-curriculars, almost everyone agrees he is a magnificent speaker. He spent over 90 minutes after his speech pressing the flesh and it truly was more exciting than I thought it would be to meet him up close.

On the way back to the bus Bob Graham's group gave us a Florida orange. We signed up to get emails for clean energy options. I spotted Dennis Kucinich wandering around as if looking for his car and called him over..........I feel bad for calling him by first name but Congressman Kucinich is so clumsy. I shook his hand and sincerely thanked him for his bravery in voting his beliefs and saying the difficult things that need to be said. The girl with him was very beautiful. I'm not sure if she was wife or campaign manager. He was taller than he looks on his web page. He shook hands with everyone in my group.

We saw a man fall down in the mud on the way to the bus in front of us. It really was very slick. On the way back to the hotel we all said we were so tired from being on our feet all day, but we were talking as fast as we could comparing the speeches and our reactions and who met who and what they said. It dawned on me that we sounded like groupies. Almost everyone went to Country Kitchen when we got to the hotel (after getting lost for quite a while), and I'm sure it was less from actual hunger and more from craving to continue to process the excitement of the day.

I found out that there were a LOT of people there who had never been in politics before. One man in our group had been a 30 year republican and just endorsed Dean a week ago. I heard retired Iowans comment how glad they were to see so many young people involved.......they said they had not seen so many since Bobby Kennedy was running. You could almost feel their relief that they had hope that someone would be there to pass the torch to.

I planned to go right to bed but ended up watching us on CSPAN and lying awake thinking about how much fun it was. Sunday on the bus was by far the most animated and detailed political talk. It was amazing to be with so many people who pay attention to and understand the issues. I learned so much, not only about politics but about the stories of these wonderful people and how they arrived at their beliefs. We also ventured outside of the political topic. I met a woman with a diabetic dog named Arthur and we shared information on insulin dosages for our pets and how we manage our lives around the shots. (My cat Phytoplankton is diabetic for those who did not know.)

In any case, I felt like family as soon as I got on the bus and I'm sure several of these folks will be life-long friends, even if only via email. This ranks among the top 5 weekends of my life. I wanted to say the best but remembered that I say that for everything..........well, life is quite a bit of fun.......it's hard to choose just a few good things.....This was definitely good.