Friday, June 16, 2006

The Gentleman From Illinois

Barack was Barack. You make a grown man cry...

The speech was in Dyche Stadium, or what is now known as the Welsh-Ryan arena. (Isn't the point of spending a lot of money on a monument to ensure that your name will live on through the ages? You're only setting yourselves up for the big hurt in a couple of generations, Messrs Welsh, Ryan)

This is where I graduated from high school ten years, two weeks and two days ago. And also where I marched in a 4th of July parade with Barack two years, eleven months and...let's just say three years ago. How far that "skinny guy from the South Side with the funny name" has come.

As one might expect, the speech was essentially a call to arms for a generation and all that. He made excellent use of that hoary old bit from Saint Paul about putting childish things away, which I've never much liked, but he made me like it.

Speaking of childish things, there was a maybe three year old kid running around near me, acting like a three year old. At one point he asked the very appropriate questions "What's going on?" and "Who is that guy?" I hope someday someone tells him who that guy was, and I hope he tells his grandchildren...

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