Yesterday at the Celtic-Highland Games in Richmond (good and bad)

[underpants]

My wife and I volunteered to "work" the Celtic-Highland games (Large men throwing things). It was on the same grounds (Richmond International Raceway) as the highly successful State Fair. There was some problem with coordinating as the third point person had taken over the task but we got there at noon and finally met up with the woman who had been there since 9:30. She gave us stickers (for shirts), bumperstickers, and buttons.

We weren't getting up in people's faces-we had on Kerry t-shirts and buttons and let the roll of stickers stream out of my backpack and had long streams of stickers in our hands. We slowly walked around and BOOM! all kinds of people were coming up to us to see if they could get a sticker-we were handing stuff out like candy on Halloween "Here take this. You want a bumpersticker? Here take 3 here have some buttons" All to huge smiles and lots of people who are concerned about W as well as completely psyched about Kerry and Edwards.

The first guy who came up to us at least looked like he could kick everyone's a** that I have ever met. Big guy, tattoos all over his arms, long goatee, all in black-he is a union ironworker here in Va. who has been mobilizing the local members and apprentices. He loves Kerry and knows that he will increase union work here in Va. as well as everywhere. Not exactly your "liberal" stereotype.

We also talked to some very informed and therefore concerned people including one from Florida (going there tomorrow to early vote) and a woman who said that she sees nothing but Kerry signs even in Chesterfield county which is amazing.

All in all just my wife and I (there were 3 teams of two on the grounds) handed out stuff to AT LEAST

50 PEOPLE!!

We didn't see any W people out and then we found out why.

After about 2 hours this guy with "State Fair of Virginia" credentials around his neck walks up to us and says that we can't hand out any political stuff on the grounds, and then walks off. After several cell phone calls to HQ and with the coordinator and talking to one of the attendants (very nice older gentleman) we determined that okay maybe we weren't supposed to be doing that(if we had had a booth we could have) so we packed everything up and stopped handing stuff out-but we did have two more people come up and ASK us if we had anything so we gave them what we could.

Okay not a huge thing but every little bit helps. Plus I finally found out the history of my last name which sadly wasn't in any of the volumes of clan names-we didn't make the list. Turns out my people were sent from Scotland to Ireland to kill them and take their land and that after years of this some of them went back to Scotland (different name) and the ones that stayed kept my sir name.....so we have that going for us.

[Longhorn]

1. Too bad you got shut down but it does sound like fun!

How great to be able to share your enthusiasm with so many. You helped keep hope alive, both at the games and here on the board! Thanks! :yourock:

[Nay]

2. Underpants! you were at the Celtic Games yesterday??? When?

We were there, too, but didn't see any teams passing out Kerry stuff. We got there at 9 AM and left about 11:30 AM. Sorry to have missed you. One of these days we will meet!

I visited my clan tent (been a member for years), wandered around, watched large men throwing things. We haven't been in a couple of years, and were sad to see that they did not have sheepdog trials OR the tent that had all sorts of real wool yarn to buy. (I'm a knitter.) But, we still had fun.

[underpants]

3. We pulled in right at Noon

Damn!

First time I had been to the Highland games. We had a great time. I love the "dog tickets" idea, very funny. We watched the opening ceremonies and later some large men trying to throw a haggis or something through a really high field goal (I'm joking I have no idea what you call that competition) from the other end of the field. All the stands were full so it was hard to get a good look.

My wife (a redhead) said she had never seen so many redheads in one place, me either :wow:

Sorry we didn't cross paths. Go down to the HQ on Laburnum (right under 195) maybe we will run into each other there. Next week I will be spending most of my time at the GOTV phone bank on 8th street.

On EDIT

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