Tuesday, October 28, 2008

My ONE politically-oriented post

I'm just trying to stay out of the way.

Obama is coming to our small city this afternoon, and the school is in a delirium of "can I call my mom to see if I can leave school to see Obama?" Finally an announcement was made that NO ONE is allowed to use the phone in the attendance office to call for permission to leave the school (which leaves it wide open for school-wide use of forbidden cell phones and sudden illnesses).

The announcement of the visit was made on Sunday, and the town has been nuts since then. I believe that the last presidential candidate visited here in 1860. People camped overnight on the JMU campus, hoping to get inside the Convocation Center and claim one of the 8000 seats. This will be interesting; let's see, there are at least 10,000 JMU students, about 40,000 city residents, and a few hundred city school teachers and students all vying for a glimpse.

I'm going down to the attendance office to see how insane it all is. I bet that half of the kids in the school are trying to leave.

UPDATE: That was interesting. Many students decided that they had the right to leave school without parental permission because a presidential candidate is speaking nearby. Mayhem ensued. Many of the students became quite verbally abusive to staff and administration. An announcement was made that no more students would be allowed to leave school for any reason other than illness (and suddenly many kids were ill) and no calls from parents would be entertained in that regard. Some parents stormed in and were also verbally abusive to staff and administration as a result of this.

Last I heard, at least half of our 1300+ kids had signed out or stayed out all day. At noon, it was said that there was a line of potential attendees snaking out a mile from the Convo Center. It's 46 degrees and windy. I just heard that people are parking at K-Mart, which is a good two miles away, and having to walk from there.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Betty said...

Wow, I didn't know that high school students would get so excited about such things. I wonder how many of the ones who stayed/went home today actually attempted to go to the convo center? One of my friends at work said that she and her husband and daughter planned to go, but I said that I can't think of anyone who I would want to see badly enough that I would stand out in the cold for hours just for the chance of getting inside to see him. I guess I'm much too lazy, and cold, for such things. AND, politics just don't excite me.

rita said...

They got excited about leaving school, and some got excited because of the race of the candidate and made quite a fuss in the main office. I don't mean to be racist there, it's just what happened.

I wouldn't stand in the cold to see anyone, much less in a crowd of thousands of wound-up kids and adults. The excitement here was contagious, but I don't get excited about politics, either. I will vote, though, because not voting just doesn't help the country.

Anonymous said...

Betty said...

Uh....Don Henley? Freezing cold winter night in Richmond? You and Joan?

rita said...

*snork*

Okay. For some.

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