January 17
by Janine Stephenson
The campaign storefront is just as
dirty and grubby as any other empty storefront. There weren’t even signs to
tell us that we had arrived. The windows were huge and it was dark. Once Becca
and I figured out where we were, we tried opening the door. But it was locked.
Becca knocked on the glass. An old woman came to the door. Her grey hair was
tied in a bun. She wore a man’s shirt, nice pants and an apron.
We asked her if it was the McCarthy
Headquarters. She laughed and said, “Headquarters?”
Becca and I introduced ourselves. We
told her that we had come all the way from Madison, Wisconsin to help Senator
McCarthy become president. She told us that her name was Mrs. Catherine
Stoutmiller. She lived in New Hampshire her whole life and never once voted
Republican.
We told her that we were very pleased
to meet her. And we were.
We put our luggage in the corner of
the room and offered to help her clean the storefront. Craig, her helper went
to Manchester to pick up literature. I asked her if we needed his permission to
become volunteers. She said that if we wanted to be volunteers, we could just
by saying we were volunteers. We didn’t need anyone’s permission.
It soon became dark out and there was
no sign of Craig. Becca and I didn’t like the idea of sleeping in the
storefront, but we didn’t have anyplace else to go. We asked Mrs. Stoutmiller
if it would be alright to crash in the corner of the room. She said that she
would have none of that. We could sleep at her house, in her daughter’s old
room.
We told her that it was very nice of
her to let us sleep at her house. She said that it was very nice of us to come
all the way from Wisconsin to make the world a better place for everyone.
