An Alum and Some Students

It’s all her fault.

My friend Susan’s.

Even though I really don’t know her all that well, she manages to get me to do things. No one ever gets me to do things.

One example was discussed in my last post. On our walks, our conversations have touched upon the current election, and we are both supporters of Hillary Clinton. She says things like “It would be fun to get involved in the campaign.” I’m a little skeptical when she says things like that, but, when she sent me an email with the information on the event in Nashua, I went.

After that event, she was looking for other events to attend, and she asked “Isn’t there any kind of group at Wellesley organizing events?”

Of course there is. So, I finally clicked on the join button to that Facebook group I’ve known about for quite some time now.

And that same day there was a message that was posted looking for volunteers to drive students to and from Nashua on Sunday so they could canvass before the NH primary.

And I volunteered.

It wasn’t like there was anything else happening on Sunday.

So, I drove down to Wellesley and managed to get a couple photos of the campus during the 15 minutes I had before I had to pick up the students.

On the way up to Nashua, I offered to let them connect to the car radio to play their music. They chose to listen to the cast recording of Hamilton – a Broadway show based on the life of Alexander Hamilton. Set to rap music.

Like my girls do when they are in the car, the students bellowed out the lyrics all the way up to Nashua. (And also like my girls, they slept all they way back to Wellesley.) As with most rap music, I couldn’t quite catch all the lyrics, and I asked the girls a couple questions. Turns out Alexander Hamilton was illegitimate (“the ten-dollar founding father without a father“), and he may have fooled around with his sister-in-law.

After learning a thing or two about Alexander Hamilton, we arrived at the Nashua campaign headquarters, where Susan and her daughter met up with us.

From there, we got sent to Milford because that’s where “the data” indicated we were needed. (Susan had a few ideas on how we could improve both campaign offices, but we managed to escape unscathed.)

I can’t say that Milford is the most exciting of places to canvass. The population is a little sparse.

The Campaign Trail

Canvassing with a W

But, armed with clipboards and an unordered list of street addresses, the students (Jenna, Elinor, Rachel, and Maggie) worked up the courage to knock on doors, succeeded in getting a few commitments, and maintained a positive attitude. At one point in the car, the consensus that was voiced was “If she doesn’t win, at least we can say we tried. And if she does win, we can say it was all because of us.”

I liked their attitude.