Grant Park, November 4, 2008

A few days ago, my stepdaughter asked if I would serve as a parent chaperone on a field trip her class was taking. Tuesdays are my day off-- the only day with no work and no school. I told her I would. I realized, too, that it was election day, and being the political junkie that I am, I knew that it would do me good to be out in the morning-- away from CNN and my laptop.

It turned out that we were going to see a play at the Merle Reskin Theater-- former the Blackstone Theater. It turned out that we were going to a theater a half block from Grant Park, where Barack Obama is speaking tonight. So much for getting my mind off of the election for a few hours.

I shot pictures out the windows of the bus with my camera phone, so the images aren't real high quality. The picture at the top shows police officers deploying into the park at 9:45 am, more than 12 hours before Mr. Obama's scheduled appearance.



One of the concerns was that there would not be enough portapotties. You can only see a couple of them in the picture, captured on a camera phone from a moving school bus, but there were plenty.



This one was taken in front of the theater. You can see a Chicago policeman on a Segway scooter. There were lots of cops there already. With the unseasonably beautiful weather, the turnout for the election was good, and the crowd should be big in Grant Park tonight.



I managed to snap a picture of a statue that begame iconic forty years ago during the Democratic Convention. Who would have thought that the son of the Chicago mayor whose police waded into the protestors, batons swinging, would hold a huge rally for the guy who may become the first black president of the United States?



I'm watching the results on CNN. It's only 8:08 pm, CST. The big states, Florida, North Carolina and Ohio are still to be called. I think I was right to have an early call time in the "Beat Johnny Yen" contest.