Rally!
I will always remember this day as the day I joined 80k supporters of the delightful opposition, the tremendous outpouring of support for Barack Obama at Denver’s Civic Center Park. I took the light-rail train from my sleepy suburb, and more and more people filled up the train the closer we got to downtown. Obama shirts, button, signs… throngs of people emptied out of the train at the Convention Center to walk to the park. The line to the “entrance” was three blocks long, but it moved quickly, and I took the opportunity to buy the button I wanted from one of the guys with the button-boards, who walked along with me (backwards) as I held my glove in my teeth, getting a $5 bill for him all while walking with the line moving towards the Capitol Building and the adjacent park. Usually it is just filled with street folks and drug-dealers, the occasional library-going pedestrian… but today it was like the LOVE PARADE in Berlin! (sort of.) I climbed up a crab-apple tree to see the little ants that spoke at the podium. It was flat and hard to see from the outer stretches. The crowd reached like ocean all the way up Capitol Hill to the Governor’s Mansion up the way.
We heard from our Democratic Representative Diana Degette, whom I met at a brunch I went to years ago when I was going through a high-point of political activism with my dad as my date. Our democratic senator Ken Salazar spoke a few words, and Mark Udall the “Boulder Liberal” running for Senate on the Democratic ticket, who is also pro-alternate energy, education, and bringing home our troops… And one of my favorites, popular Denver mayor business-man, democrat, micro-brew beer man (formerly a geologist) whom I worked for at the Wynkoop Brewing Company in the late nineties. He was a very nice absentee owner, who made pleasant appearances at the brew-pub now and then again. Later I also worked for him as a temp- addressing his wedding invitations by hand when he was our new mayor, and I went to a city-council/mayor meeting one morning when I interned for the City Councilwoman from my district. Just last Friday night we had a 20th anniversary Wynkoop reunion, and he was there, and hugged me! The nice man stayed until the end of the night when we were all ushered out, goons and all the familiar faces from a fun job I had years ago.
And then Barack Obama said inspiring, and intelligent things. He called for personal responsibility too, which the libertarian part of me likes, and YES! Let’s tweak the system out so that it includes more and more of us. YES, infrastructure, and community effort! I just love being inspired for once. I’m on board!
Nina Lois is a graduate student at the University of Colorado at Denver obtaining a Master's Degree in Humanities with a B.A. in political science. Her passions are broad when it comes to the human condition. She is deeply interested in philosophy, psychology, environmental and social justice, peace studies, music, nutrition, tradition, and progress. 
Upon her imminent graduation, she wishes to contribute to the health, wealth, and happiness of the community through involvement, writing, and research. For goodness's sake, love the body, cultivate the mind and a garden, and feed the soul!
Thanks again