Block walking

Saturday I volunteered to block walk for a candidate running for the state representative job from a district that includes much of the Heights.

We spent the last hour of our walk encouraging a very down and out and depressed man.

I know I am pretty bad at speaking to people. I was hoping to fan out from the central location and pass out circulars, put them on doors, etc. But they have already done that on previous weeks.

This week they wanted us to drive to various places and ask local business owners to place signs for the candidate in their windows or on fences that would be seen prominently from the street. That I know I would be bad at. But we were paired together.

We got Long Point from 290 to Bingle. We maybe got one third of the way in two hours. We spent from 9 to 10 getting oriented and encouraged. For the few of us who had no been before or were not veterans of block walking this was time well spent.

Fortunately for me two other newbies needed a partner and so I drove the three of us out to 290 and Long Point. The lady who was with us was new to this campaign but a veteran block walker and actually an elected official somewhere else. I did not get from where. The third man was a tall good looking man, hispanic looking, who could easily be Pancho Claus. He seemed new to this but was a great friendly speaker who had a good testimony.

Later when we knocked on the doors of a couple of houses that fronted on Long Point, people would peek out the window and promptly lay low waiting for us to leave. Our lady worker immediately recognized that we two scary looking men were the reason they would not open. But she would not openly demand that we hang back and let her knock alone. However we respected their feelings and moved on.

The local businesses we found were receptive when we spoke of how tough things are for the small business owner who is going to be inundated with new rules and penalties. We got four businesses to agree to place signs up on their premises. So I believe our mission was very successful.

I tried to give the opening speech twice. The lady was critical that I opened with "Republican". When she gave it, smooth and word for word by the way, she said Mr. Hernandez was an Independent running on the Republican ticket and quickly noted we had a lot of Republicans who needed to be replaced. So these people were Tea Party or at least influenced by the Tea Party. But the word "Tea Party" was never used.

I was sent because I got word of this block walk by the Republican leadership in Harris County. Despite the rhetoric from the Tea Party people the powers that be have decided to receive these new activists with open arms. That was certainly clear the last executive meeting where all the new candidates were introduced enthusiastically along with everyone else.

We ended up spending an hour talking to this man who was depressed and down and out. He blamed his plight on the lack of incentive in the construction industry right now because of Obama's promises. He would be glad for the biggest sign we had to be put in his front yard. The lady with us led us in prayer for his financial situation and later offered to give him money. He firmly refused money and even had to walk off for a second to fight off tears.

The other man spoke of getting a job driving an HISD bus, they prefer men, as a stop gap job while he looked the rest of the day. This man is a expert tile installer. He has worked in big commercial buildings. But no one is doing the buildings right now, at least that he knows.

He is hispanic, his dad was American. He was conceived in the USA but born in Mexico. When he came back from Mexico he was homeless for a while. But he got on his feet and for a while made $4,000 a week as a sub-contractor installing tile. Now he is making $600 a month and has this house almost paid for. But he is afraid of what will happen if he is five days late on a payment.

We finally had to pull ourselves away and get back to the finishing place. This was at a little pocket park, well kept up, at 800 W. Temple, just north of the Vineyard Church. They cooked us hot dogs and had cokes.

It was wonderful to meet and be joined with two such excellent block walkers. It was best that I acted in a supporting roles. They were so kind and considerate. But the lady, once she got going, was great at closing the sale and asking for more, in a friendly way of course. Those people that we met were all left with a better feeling about the Republican party.