TUESDAY JULY 26 DAY 3---BROWNS AT THE DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL CONVENTION

TUESDAY JULY 26---DAY 2 OF THE DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL CONVENTION

Each day of the convention I wore a Howard Dean hat from his presidential bid in 2004.  It had buttons on it and I got a lot of comments when wearing it. At breakfast on Tuesday, Amy Klobuchar from Minnesota gave the funniest political speech I heard all week.  As she was leaving, she spied my hat and came over and shook my hand and said how much she enjoyed working with Howard Dean.

My adventures started today after lunch. I decided to use my Wheel Chair.  On Monday I was able to get around with my prosthetic leg and a walker, but I had a lot of leg pain, so periodic rest stops were required.  I have very little leg pain when traveling in the Chair without my prosthesis.

I decided to start by going to the Convention Center to see what was going on there.  The buses in Philadelphia are equipped with chair lifts and the driver was able to load me on to the bus.  It was about a 15 minute ride to my destination.  The Philadelphia Convention Center is a block long building and once i returned to the street I had to travel for quite a distance to find a ramp entrance.

Inside they offered a set of three conference-like sessions on very specific topics.  I chose the Rural Council.  The presentations included individual speakers and panel discussions. Senator Tester of Montana, Senator Highcamp of North Dakota  and Rep Costa of California were the main speakers. Since there was no interaction with the audience, I thought the two hour program was interesting, but rather dry.  Much of the focus was on the problems facing farmers in the west with little reference to agriculture in the east. Suggestions included increased funding for  research at land grant schools (like PSU) and an improved Federal Farm Bill that helps the family operations instead if big business.  Also the aging of farmers, high levels of poverty in rural areas, the increase in drug addiction, as well as a declining population were presented as real issues for agriculture and rural areas as the country moves into the future.  The very last speaker was a native American who only had about 5 minutes to present. I felt that was unfortunate and expressed such to one of the organizers. Also I suggested that the plight of African-American farmers in the South and Hispanic farmers in the Southwest should have been part of the discourse as well.

On my way out of the Convention Center I visited a display set up by Progressive Change Campaign Committee and discussed a variety of topics with one of the staff.

Once I exited the Center I moved to the spot where the bus dropped me off. When I arrived I asked a volunteer when the next bus would arrive?  She said there probably will not be any  buses due to street closures caused by marching demonstrators.  After about 20 minutes of searching for a bus or possibly a cab with no luck, I thanked them for their efforts and decided to head back to my hotel in my Wheel Chair. Now, I still have pretty good upper body strength, but this is the first time I ever tried traveling this far in my Chair.

My first stop was at Dilwurth Park near City Hall. This spot has about 100 fountains of water that pop out of a flat stone surface.  They shoot up to a height of about 5 feet and are situated such that kids can run into the area get wet and run back out.  Some of them just sat in the midst of the spouts of water enjoying the cooling effect---it was in the 90's.  A guy dressed like a Biblical character was walking back and forth through the fountains carrying a cross inscribed with "Vote for Jesus".

Just beyond the park I encountered the demonstration.  There were police everywhere.  One group I spoke to, were from New Jersey. The sidewalks were all blocked by police and there was not a ramp to be seen, so I asked someone to lower me down the curb and into the street.  When i arrived in the middle of the street it suddenly dawned on me that I was in the middle of the demonstration.

On my left were a couple of vans and maybe 400 demonstrators.  On my right about 100 feet away there was a phalanx of maybe 50 police officers on bicycles.

 I spoke to one of the guys by the van.  He said he had driven up from Miami to take part in the demonstrations.  He spent the previouus week at the RNC convention in Cleveland.   During the conversation he asked me how old I was.  When I told him 76, he lamented that I looked better than he did at 60. He was smoking a cigarette, had long scraggly hair and looked like a transplant from the 1960's.  Interesting fellow.

My next challenge was to get back up on the sidewalk.  I approached a couple of policemen on the other side of the street and they pulled me up onto the sidewalk and I was on my way. As I moved on, the demonstration remained  stationery with a woman yelling into a microphone about how terrible Hillary was. It was a ragtag group with no real cohesive message---just a group of boisterous people.  There was no violence---just a peaceful protest. As I traveled toward my hotel the streets were mostly blocked off and the sidewalks were empty making my mode of travel pretty easy.  At one point I stopped to take a break and parked back next to a building.  I had noticed an expensive looking bus sitting along the curb in front of me, but did not think much about it.  Suddenly at least 10 guys in black suits and sunglasses descended on the area.    Wow, this should be interesting. With the secret service, or what ever they were, stationed all around the bus, a tall black gentleman  wearing flowing robes and wearing a orange stripped hat emerged from a nearby building and entered the bus. He was soon joined by others including a woman in a beautiful blue dress.  I asked one of the guards who the person was and he wouldn't tell me. That was an interesting experience.

As I was motoring down the sidewalk the buses passed me going south on Broad Street with a full police escort---flashing lights and sirens blaring.  The man appeared to be an African leader, but I have no idea who he was.  But it was obvious that the authorities wanted to keep him safe.

Soon after I arrived at my hotel, the demonstration peacefully moved down Broad Street, past the hotel and on down the street. They had police cars in front and police on bicycles beside and behind them.  They were completely boxed in.  This tactic seemed to be very effective in allowing the demonstrators to protest and march, but at the same time preventing any outbreak of violence.

I checked a map---I had wheeled my chair about a half a mile.

This was a big day for Bea. At breakfast she signed a petition indicating her support for Hillary during Tuesday's roll call.  Later at the convention during the roll call of states she stood just a few feet from Pennsylvania's Governor Tom Wolf as he read off the votes for Hillary and Bernie Sanders.

Late Tuesday evening our daughter Christine joined us from Baltimore.


NOTE:  After the convention we were told Bea was shown on FOX NEWS during Bill Clinton's speech on Tuesday.  Wow, a TV star.