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Part Deux: Waiting for History to Happen

The next day, Tuesday September 7, was Debate Day. We found ourselves at Belmont University, on the Street Fair right next to the auditorium where the debate itself was to be held that evening – essentially, the epicenter of the media world for this moment.

Spent the whole day laughing and smiling as stunned onlookers, all in a rush to get to somewhere through this busy side street now populated by booths, trucks and tents from CNN, RocktheVote, NOW, National Right to Life, Citizens with Ukuleles United Against Shaving Homeless Wombats, The National Realtors Association, MTV, local Nashville media, and a score of others, all prepared for a savage duel, all prepared to despise one another, all prepared to hurl ugly, stupid and defamatory epithets at each other.

It was an atmosphere literally crackling with static, and people of passion were locking and loading their opinion guns, unafraid to fire and unwilling to exercise common social courtesies such as self-restraint in some few cases. I heard some loud and shockingly hateful and uninformed comments from a select few people of all ages – words spoken for which your mother or mine would have slapped our faces and washed our mouths out with soap and demanded we apologize to the target of our insouciance and hatefulness.

You know, the kind of stuff you just know your kids would never, ever, ever say to a complete stranger; your kids would treat even an opponent with basic common courtesy, right? How wrong some people are who hold that hope.

Except, they didn’t. Savagely duel, that is, at least not once they were in eyeshot or earshot of our booth, and caught a glimpse of ‘Sarah’ or ‘Dubya’ or ‘Bubba.’

We saw lots of wonderful smiles, suddenly. Supporters of any or all or some or none of us three doppelgangers – and I will say, conservatively, that over 2,000 such fellow citizens participated – simply had to have their photos taken with us.

They shook our hands and thanked us warmly, with delight and appreciation. Oh, sure, a rare few here and there insisted on hurling a few insults or slurs or worse, but to be truthful, they were very few. Our intent was to be entertaining, not provocative, and to bring the message that both Democrats and Republicans are not mortal enemies, but must share the ride on this great ship of state that is and remains the American experiment. Bottom line: we have to live with each other once the election is concluded, don’t we? We’ll still be neighbors, still members of the same community; the same snows and rains and tornadoes and floods and fires will hit us all, living right next door to each other, as before the election. We just wanted people to chill, to de-stress, to take a deep breath and have a good laugh.

And we did.

We snagged TV pundit Chris Matthews as he hurried by, and he graciously joined us for a few photos to be posted somewhere here, among others.

And while leaving the Belmont University area in order to get to a safe place for all of us to watch the debates in living room comforts, Obama’s pre-presidential motorcade suddenly went whizzing by – a horde of motorcycles in formation, blue lights flashing, 50, no, 60 of them? Then, a score of white Suburbans, then a dozen black ones, then more Suburbans, then more black SUVs, then another 40 or 50 squad cars and finally, 20 or more Tennessee state troopers and county sheriffs, and then…only the sound of cheering in this apparently primarily African-American neighborhood in which we sat waiting for traffic – and the world – to return to normal.

We all know now that the world has re-identified ‘normal.’ Time will tell indeed whether ‘normal’ is good or not.

Traffic, I suspect, remains the same.

This can really be a fun gig at times.