Ride Board: Cal Bears Beat Bush Round III

"Want to hear a joke?" Julia had a devious tone to her voice. "What?" I responded with hesitation. "Us, going to Reno at 4:30 in the morning on Saturday!"

After the incredible experience of traveling to Reno on the October 1st trip, we knew that we had to find a way back. Richard, our go to guy from Driving Votes, had been actively attempting to persuade us to skip our hometown football game (an unthinkable action in Piedmont) but the outlook seemed dim. Finally we got the word that Meera, our saving grace at this point, was departing on Saturday before the break of dawn.

Our group of four (Meera, Vivian, Julia, and I) was relatively enthusiastic for the bizarre hour; I attribute this to the exciting prospect of actually turning Nevada blue. After several semi conscious hours, and a pit stop for Doritos, we found ourselves amongst three hundred other volunteers just as pumped for the day ahead. I was identified as a capable young person and assigned to use Palm Pilots with team nine (GO JETS!) We initially terrified our leader Scott, but by the end of the day I think he was broken. Describing the trip to friends later felt like going over a weeks worth of activities, so much was packed into the ten or so hours in Reno that it does not seem possible. Inspired by the speeches of James and the national director ACT, coupled with the thrill of appearing on Nevada news, I entered the sublets of Reno with one thing on my mind, Get out the Vote! My fellow teammate Ricker was a phone call away, ready to bring the van to whomever wanted a ride. People showed us a great deal of support, and not once did we run into apathy.

Driving votes did an incredible job organizing and providing for the volunteers of this trip. Not only did I feel proud of the work that was getting done, I enjoyed being a part of such an inspiring and motivated group. While winning back Nevada for the Democrats, doing my part to further door to door campaigning, and remaining updated on the efforts various groups are putting in to this election are the main reasons I opted to go to Reno, the fun I had is motivation enough to do it again.

--Paula Klein, Piedmont, CA

As you know Reno was the destination for many Californians ready to make a difference in this election. I was on the train. In this case my train was the Meera express arriving at the early hour of 4:20 a.m.

I had not met this spirited young women who was doing her part for restoring democracy. We picked up 2 very cheery teen age gals. They were amazingly excited for such an early hour. Meera is very serious and quite intelligent with a beautiful smile mixed with a lot of confidence.

I have always been an activist and have worked for many issues both environmental and helping elect local council members in my town of Hayward. I attended all the S.F peace rallies and had our own candle light vigil in my home town.

I grew up in the Bay area and have always had my hands in progressive politics. I am a member of the Green party, yet I believe this election needs my help in order to sway the voters away from Bush.

I met up that morning after a very smokey ride through the burning forest. What a metaphor for where our world is right now, certainly we are on fire. Soon we hit the headquarters for ACT and other organizations. I was very impressed with the organization of the leaders as well the coordinated efforts of giving everyone something to do. We had a great team of folks, I was on team A with the wild teen girls. I used a Palm pilot for the first time and we hit the streets. Our leader was very easy going yet helpful. One of our guys just quit his job and spoke of the future. Another women provided lots of humor and up energy. Did I make a difference, well, I had the best conversation with a young voter in the future, she said to me (she is 12 by the way) 'what is your take on Kerry?' She agreed to get her mom to rent Michael Moore's 911 and will vote on Nickelodeon (Sp). Which by the way I heard the votes are in from the kids and guess who won...yes it was Kerry. They say for the past 2 or 3 elections the kids have chosen the president. see you in Vegas or it is back to Reno for Halloween?

Sincerely a big thank you to everyone.
--
Viviane June DeLeon Bias, Hayward, CA

Driven by a shared desire to get Bush out of office, the whole lot of us drove way the hell out to a quaint town called Reno. Aside from a few episodes of Comedy Central's Reno 911, I was ignorant to the Nevadan city that would prove to be the home of a quite hospitable bunch of characters. While my official job was to energize the voters and hopefully get them to the polls, I found that simply discussing the voters' situations and listening to their tirades about bush produced a grand o' time.

Though a bit timid initially (as this is the first time I had ever done something like this), the very first door I knocked upon erased any worries I had for the day. My now good chum Darlene answered the door to the yapping of her wiener dog, whom she swore would not bite me. After being introduced to her roommate Mabel, I explained to them the purpose of Driving Votes. Darlene was quite excited by the notion that we would drive her to the polling station and requested we pick them up on election day, as I believe they see what many take for granted as a special outing. When leaving I was asked whether I wanted her small dog to accompany me on my quest to wrangle up some democratic voters, alas I declined and trudged on down Desert Peach Drive.

Despite the fact that I was mostly unsuccessful to persuade anyone to vote that first day, I feel my trip to Sparks (a suburb of Reno) was well worth the 6 hour round trip. Though I regret being out of town for Cal's homecoming victory over UCLA, I can now say that I was chased out of a cul 'de sac by a seven-year-old girl sporting vampire fangs; one more thing off my list to do before I die. From the long drives filled with discussions on bush's domestic doublespeak (clean sky's initiative, no child left behind, etc.), to kicking back with a Sparks man while he drank a Corona and told me of his plans for the future, the trip was a lot of fun.
--
Travis Johnston, Berkeley, CA