Beth Bollinger

Editor:

It was a beautiful morning - cool, with a promise of a little heat. I made my way through security. "We're in!" I said to the guy next to me. He looked at me like I was nuts.

Maybe I am. I have been volunteering for Barack Obama all year long. I had made my way to Denver two weeks ago - my seventh state for volunteering - with the distant hope of convincing someone to let me see some of the convention. Instead, I had been canvassing in Littleton every day, having a blast, but wishing for just a moment or two inside the Pepsi Convention Center. It was not to be.

Then, there I was. It was Thursday. It was Invesco Field. It was the day of Barack Obama's speech. And I was through the gates.

I had had a ticket, but offered to volunteer instead. I ended up one of 15 volunteers armed with wheelchairs to help out any of the delegates who needed extra help.

As the day began, the DNCC corralled us into the stadium stands for training. We were sitting behind the backdrop for that night's events. We tried to stay put like good volunteers as we waited for training to start. But in minutes, we were climbing up the metal staircase one by one to the top of the backdrop, peering out on the football field that did not look like a football field anymore, given the stage and all the metal flooring, and the multitude of empty chairs. State names were scattered around. The field seemed almost alive - not yet though, not for a few more hours.

After training, the day began. We took turns taking delegates in wheelchairs down to the field. There were wires and people everywhere, creating a great but manageable obstacle course. This was why I had wanted to volunteer - to help people who needed it.

As I looked out onto the field from the stands that were filling up, I noticed how small each of the people speaking looked on stage from such a distance. The television shows made them appear bigger than life, I thought. Reality kept them human.

I was working and could not hear most speeches. I knew I could listen to them later. But there was one speech I was not going to miss.

It was time. Volunteers scattered to seats. Darkness came, lights dimmed. Obama's life video played.

And then, there he was. A small figure in the distance, but unmistakably him. I could watch him on the big screen if I wanted. But I found myself wanting to watch the figure far in front of me, in amongst all the waving flags between us. That was what was real.

What a speech. It was who he is. And it was what he will do. It was about the human spirit, what we are capable of accomplishing if only we choose it. It was pithy and funny, and grounded in the reality of what we face as a country, with the solutions he proposes. And it was about how we cannot continue the way that we have the past eight years. "Enough," he said. One word. Enough.

And then there was that moment when he spoke of patriotism, and how we all love our country, and that nobody should question that truth. "Soldiers that fight together are not red or blue, just American. … They have not served a Red America or a Blue America. They have served the United States of America."

This is the America that I love. The one he describes - I know that country. I believe she exists, underneath all the grime that we have heaped upon her. I believe we can find her again, and believed it even more as I listened to him speak. We Americans have so much more in common with each other than we sometimes realize. We are, after all, the lucky citizens of the greatest country in the world.

The speech was over. There were fireworks and explosions of confetti, red, white and blue, like little raindrops sprinkling the sky. The Obama and Biden families took the stage. They waved, we waved. And then it was done.

After it was all over, and after I helped transport people in wheelchairs to buses and shuttles, I walked back to the stadium field. It was quiet again, just a few workers present, not too much the worse for wear even after such a busy night.

On the ground, there was the red, white and blue confetti that had been fired from the stage upward to the sky. They looked large up close. I leant down to pick up three pieces - one color each - to keep as a memento. The red piece stuck a little to the ground, resisting my efforts. I smiled and picked it up anyway.

Beth Bollinger is a former Wyoming Eagle reporter and currently is a lawyer and author living in Spokane, Wash.