November 7, 2008

So, there I was, minding my own business, finishing an essay while watching the election results came rolling in. 

I was being a good boy – honest – when I heard this ruckus outside my balcony.

I live right smack dab in downtown Ann Arbor, so it’s not that unusual to hear strange noises in the night.  They usually aren’t that strange: Just the yodels of drunks bumbling home.  

But this time, it sounded different – and when I got to my balcony I discovered why. I didn’t see a few drunks stumbling down the street.  I saw a hundred or so people cheering and clapping and singing, celebrating Obama’s victory. 

Well, more power to ‘em, I thought.  I turned back to go back inside, when I too one last look up and saw maybe a thousand people -- two thousand, three? – marching behind the first group.

It was half-past midnight, and I thought: What the hell.  When am I going to see this again?

I headed toward campus.  When I got to the Diag – the University of Michigan’s town square – the crowd was even bigger.  I walked into the mosh pit -- only to discover, there was no mosh pit.  These people – almost all students – weren’t drunk, and they weren’t drugged. They were stone cold sober, peaceful – and ecstatic.   

They often broke into spontaneous chants, like “O-Ba-Ma!”  and “Yes We Can!” A few people brought snare drums, another guy blew a saxophone and some guy played a didgeridoo. But this was not some hippie convention. They weren’t angry.  I didn’t hear a single negative slogan about McCain, Palin or anyone else. 

I overheard one student ask a friend, “Surprised to see you here.  Didn’t you vote for McCain?”  His friend replied, “Dude, I just had to see this.”

Never was heard a discouraging word.  They just seemed thrilled to see that their votes had mattered – they went to the polls in record numbers – and that their hard work had paid off.  One student told me of a group in the Philadelphia suburbs that knocked on every door at least seven times. 

I saw at least a dozen students waving American flags in the air, running with them behind them like parachutes, and draping them around their shoulders.

Every few minutes a small group would break out into “The Star Spangled Banner,” and then it swept through the crowd.  They were not singing it ironically or cynically. They meant it.

And it occurred to me, the only times I’d seen large groups of students spontaneously gather on campus occurred after the 1984 World Series – I may or may not have been one of the drunks in the middle of that band of merry men, records from that period are sketchy best – and after Michigan won the NCAA basketball tournament in 1989.  

That one happened to coincide with the arrival of the Grateful Dead at Crisler Arena and the Hash Bash on campus.  Not surprisingly, it resulted in thousands of dollars of damage to neighboring stores and an ugly clash with the police and firemen. Boy, you just couldn’t see that one coming.

But not this time.  These students were not celebrating something so trivial as an athletic contest.  They weren’t loaded.  And they weren’t looking for trouble.  I saw only one cop car, down the block, and he could have taken the night off. 

The last time students gathered en masse with flags in Ann Arbor, they burned them.  A generation before that, in the fall of 1960, Michigan students came out to see John F. Kennedy introduce the idea of the Peace Corps from the steps of the Student Union.  Kennedy didn’t get there until after midnight, so the coeds were thankful when the University president granted them special permission to keep the women’s dorms open after curfew. 

On Tuesday night, their grandchildren returned to that very spot to continue their celebration.  I looked at my watch.  It was already two o’clock, and despite an absence of chemical stimulants, the party showed no signs of slowing down.  But I did.  And, hey, some of us had to teach class the next day.  I went home. 

The next morning, as I walked right across the very same Diag – free of trash -- I couldn’t help but think: Something has changed here, folks.  Something big. 

And whatever your politics, it’s hard to believe that a crowd of students celebrating their votes, their national anthem and their flag could be anything but good for the country.

Copyright © 2008, Michigan Radio 

I’m glad I saw it.