This is the beginning of my adventure that I'd like to share.
I woke up feeling like poop this Saturday, November 5th. My buddy fell asleep in my bed...i took the couch. When I was taking him home this morning, I felt sooooo bad that I had to pull over again to purge. bleh. sooo disgusting.
Anyway. All this bologna just to say the day started out pretty bad. Then I went back to sleep til like 1:30pm. Pleaseeee! what a waste.
Anyhow, i'm a fan of Ron Paul you see...and today there was going to be a sign waving to get the word out. Supporters of Ron Paul do this because Dr. Paul doesn't get much media attention, even though he wins quite a lot of polls. Those polls used to be indicators and pretty important, but now that Ron Paul wins so many of them, they count them off as rigged or unimportant. So we do our own advertising. I'm one of the guys that likes to declare that "Ron Paul cured my Apathy".
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| Not me, but I love the sign |
So I've been to a few things promoting the guy. A sign making party. A March in Austin where i got the above pic from that they do once a month. Here's some more pics from that. I also have been to a sign bomb in Austin.
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| sign wave in austin |
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| austin sign wave |
Passionate people. Inspiring and filled with way more knowledge than I have about most of these matters.
So today. I felt like poop. but I wanted to go. Chuck, a local Ron Paul supporter doing the sign wave encouraged me a little more to head out today via facebook. I like sign waving and all, but i like to leave literature in peoples hands or something. I asked Chuck if he had anything to pass out. He didn't. So 4:30 came around, they were going to meet at 5. I'm a slacker. I decided to make some homemade cheesy somethings to pass out. So I threw this together reallllly quick. Printed 4 to a sheet and printed out about 25 sheets or so. Making about 100.
So I print them. cut them as straight as I can with scissors. um. not too good. but okay. I put them in my pocket and run out the door. Locking it behind me. Reached for my keys and lo and behold. I just locked myself out of my house and my car. and my girlfriend has my spare who is in Austin today... and my roommate just left 10 minutes prior. My cell phone was in the house too. UGH!
Now i'm no proponent of this, and i don't know why it was this way....but i found my bedroom window was unlocked. OMG. Too awesome and very bad at the same time. So I crawl in my house grab my keys, my phone, and my wallet. (friggin hangover, i forgot all the essentials to have for leaving the house).
So since I was feeling soooo sick, i'd been in bed all day and i hadn't eaten a thing. So I pulled into the local Sonic restaurant. If you haven't heard of it, it's where you park, push a button and order your food while parked. While waiting, I decided to make a small ron paul sign out of some card board i had in my car (for this very purpose) using some shoe paints i had in my car (for this very purpose as well). I pulled out the white paint and pushed it to the cardboard. A buttload came out and dripped right on to my pants. Right on my crotch. OH SHIT!! What the heck. I'm starting to think i'm getting signs from the heavenlies to just stay home. A big white paint stain on my crotch area. We know that doesn't look too good. So I grab napkins and pour water on my crotch (even more unappealing). and try to make it go away before i go stand in public holding signs. I really don't believe in omens, so I just really wanted to go promote the ideas of Ron Paul ignoring such bad luck.
Arriving in front of the Alamo.
Anyway. I was encouraged. Seeing these people out there so consistently sharing what they believe is right for our nation. Drawing attention to Dr. Ron Paul.
So. I like sign waves. i really do. But I like dialoging with people way more. And I didn't know how to do that. I kinda thought to myself how people would feel if I tried to dialog with them. I thought perhaps they might be intimidated by the crowd of supporters shouting things like, "end the fed," and other things speaking of the Bildeburg group and the Rothchilds. I don't think too many people know about those things. So I pulled out my fat black marker (which was in my pocket for this very purpose) and my blank cardboard (that i spoke of earlier) and I made this sign.
Not many people asked me much. So, being an introverted guy, I typically stray from crowds pretty easily, especially the people i'm usually with. No exception here. I went across the way further down where lots of people were walking, who didn't have the chance to see the big group of sign wavers. I stood in the middle amongst people and sure enough....Lots of people came up to me. Now I made some effort (very minimal) to hand out flyers and ask people if they heard of Ron Paul... but for the most part, people came up at random and asked. Especially younger folks with their friends. I was so happy. It was soo fun. So many people on the streets of San Antonio have never heard of Ron Paul.
I ended leaving from there and went even further away close to the downtown Rivercenter Mall where there was much foot traffic. I had ran out of flyers, but I wanted to have discourse with people. So I went and stood there and held my sign. And sure enough....lots of folks were coming and asking. Many young. some older. But many liked what they heard. I'm a pretty simple person, so I try to make things simple and tried to appeal to whomever I was talking to. The simple message clicked to people, and it was obvious, just like it clicked to you. It makes too much sense.
One charity woman named Maria was right up the way from me asking for charitable change (and now that I think about it, I wish i had given her something :[ lame). But we did have several fantastic conversations through out the night about Ron Paul and his ideas. :) toooo cool and too fun. I'm glad I didn't go back home and miss out on this.
I asked Maria to take a picture of me. She had such a hard time trying to take a photo, but a this is what I got. It shot the picture when I wasn't prepared. Here is a pic of her, I took it so she could hear what it was supposed to sound like when it took the pic. Great night. I encourage many of you shy, anti social people to give it a shot. I know you like the ideas and you really want to share them, but you just might not feel comfortable doing some things. Be creative. Use your gifts to and talents to promote ron paul. I'm good at making bad signs and random flyers. :) Ron Paul 2012.
Final note: If you do this. People are really kind. But be considerate of their time. I'm not the type of person who drags on and on giving info they will not remember.
Think of highlights. Things that will stick. Flyers to hand out. Websites.
if they are young, talk about the debt they are inheriting unless things change now.
if they are military, speak of the donations from the military that Ron gets and how he wants to end undelcared, unconstitutional wars.
Mention the name a lot. it's the first time many people were hearing about it.
Think of clear concise things to say....and you might have to shout some. Massive groups of people walked by at certain times from walking-ghost tours that were going on.. and one person asked me a question from amongst the crowd... and that gave me the opportunity to shout to all these people who were looking right at me and tell them about the guy they will never hear about on the news. :) go team!
