Immaculate Reception Statue at Pittsburgh Airport

On entering Pittsburgh's Airport,
I was amazed to see a life-size replica of Franco Harris scooping up the ball before it hit the ground. Not losing a step, he ran with that ball into the end-zone to cap off a 13-7 victory over the Oakland Raiders for the Steelers that had won its first Division Title in its forty year history just weeks before. For those of you who have not seen the statue, I have attached the picture. The entire play is presented here.

Working on the Pennsylvania Primary for Obama in Pittsburgh

Murray and I decided to put our feet where our mouth is and so we have flown to Pittsburgh to work on the Obama campaign. While we both grew up in Pittsburgh we have not lived there for over forty years. And other than working for Kerry and some local candidates in the 2004 election in Steamboat Springs this is the first time we have been committed and excited about working for a candidate.

We first became interested in Obama when we listened to CD's 0f him reading "Dreams from My Father" as we were driving cross country in December. Moved by the story of his life, we eagerly followed the first primaries and began checking out his website on a regular basis. The grassroots energy, reflected in the website, hearing him speak and debate we continued following his progress during our month in Panama. We were thrilled to see that our community caucus in Colorado went overwhelmingly for Obama. Knowing how important the Pennsylvania's primary is, we decided to return to Pittsburgh and help out.

Our trip quickly fell into place. A call with the Obama headquarters office in Pittsburgh was welcoming, a cousin of Murray's had an extra room and bath that we could use, and we were able to use frequent flyer miles for our flights.

We arrived on Saturday, April 5th, and after checking in with our cousins we headed to the Obama office. The energy in the office is great. We were the 118th and 119th out-of-staters to register and meet with the out-of-town coordinator. Now five days later we feel a real part of the team. We have canvased door to door, phoned, entered data and attended events. At first phoning and canvasing felt awkward, but no longer. We are learning how to handle the difficult questions and to not take it personally when someone is rude.

Best of all, the energy in the office is a great example of team work reinforcing the message in Obama's speeches.

On a different note, for three days we were dog sitting. Now Murray and I have never had a dog but Tucker (that's really his name) this cute Yorkshire Terrier has won our heart. We have even taken him canvasing!