A little East Coast swing

Philly was fun. Actually, my signing was in Willow Grove, a suburb of Philly. On Friday, my cousins and I planned to go to Media to see a friend of mine and then drive down to a botanic garden. You know, me being "the pajama gardener" and all. Well, Shirley got VIP tix to go to a rally in Center City for Obama. Garden schmarden. Whatev. We went to see Obama! (Leslie and Kieran don't hate.)

Now if Obama looks a little flat and two dimensional here it's NOT because he's made of cardboard. They've been campaigning hard in PA and the man was a little tired.

Okay, so this isn't the real Obama. They had cardboard cut-outs of Hillary, Barack and McCain at a store in the 30th Street Train Station. Guess who everybody (except one little girl) wanted their picture with? VIP tix gave us access to the same block where he was speaking. The rally was on Independence Mall, which is about 3 blocks long. It was packed. The estimate in the paper the next day was 35,000 people. I swear I got tears in my eyes at the sight of a black man who could actually be president speaking between the buildings where the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were written.

He spoke about 20 minutes and knocked it out of the park as far as we Obamaniacs were concerned. (I'm a proud member!) The best part, though, was after the official rally when all 35,000 of us were leaving we continued the party. We chanted "Obama!" and "Yes we can!" and waved and screamed and folks honked their horns as we marched up Broad Street to City Hall. There was so much energy and enthusiasm and, yes, hope in the crowd of all colors, ages, classes, abilities, genders, you name it. As one woman next to me said, "We drank the Kool-Aid. And oh it comes in so many diverse flavors." I piped in that it certainly was refreshing. Then his motorcade went by and he rolled down his window and waved at us. Folks really lost their minds! I started to worry for the man as people chased his car.

On Saturday, I had the pleasure and honor of speaking to the Expressions and Exchanges Book Clubs. My cousins put together this event for their book clubs and friends, sorority sisters and relatives. These sisters are readers and it was so satisfying to know that people were actually getting what I was trying to say.

What a wonderful turnout and discussion we had! Thank you, ladies!!

Some members of the Exchanges Book Club, which has been meeting for more than 20 years!

Some members of the Expressions Book Club, which has been meeting 14 years. I was the first author they had at one of their meetings when Walk Tall came out.