SUNRISE

I waited exactly a week to talk about it. The truth is at ll PM
on the night of November 4th ….I went limp….like overcooked
linguine… my bones were not connected any more. Too much
had happened in a single minute and I was done, speechless. I
thought I’d cry…Jesse Jackson cried ….but I didn’t. I couldn’t
think of anything to say or do. Actually I had million things to
say but it would have been a great babble, shouting names and
old slogansand somebody would have locked me up as a crazy
person.

That was a week ago…

I called this “sunrise” and it was a sunrise…..like the ones I’d seen
in Maine when I was a little kid and the sun came up over Mount
Washington. When I was little I had this idea that each day was
fresh and beautiful and promising and that nothing that had
happened before the sunrise.

This time a lot had happened.

Charlie was in Brooklyn and said that people were walking in the
middle of the streets….something that happens in New York only
with surprises…catastrophes or celebrations…events terrible and
beautiful.
Come to think of it sunrises aren’t surprises at all….so you’ll have to
make an exception because I’ll be damned if I’ll change the title. George
Orwell could write titles; “Keep the Aspidistra Flying” for example….I
don't remember what it means, but I love to say it. And I love to say
“sunrise” when I think about young Obama as our President.

People were walking in the middle of the street in Brooklyn. Honest
to God.

I’ve got to say the obvious…and you can skip this self-serving
paragraph if you like. It was a long, relentless journey. For me
it was 48 years, a couple of barrels of gin, a lot of slogging against
the wind. All the years at CORE, on the Lower East Side, in public
housing and finally the weeks in Ohio in the projects, registering
people for Obama. And there were tens of thousands of others
….much stronger and braver than me.

I’ve run out of words already……

It’s 1860 and it’s 2008 and a skinny young man from Illinois will
save the republic.


ol val