Razmear
07-21-2007, 07:13 PM
The alarm went off at 6:30 AM, for the first time in years I didn't hit the snooze button. Do you remember the feeling you had when you were 4 years old and you woke up on Christmas Day, not sure if you got the toy you prayed for or if it was going to be a holiday where all you got was new socks? That was how I felt as I was getting ready to hit the road.
The first stop was at BJ's in Greenville. I had called the night before to have them select $300 in food items hoping to just pick up a pallet and go. When I saw what they had selected (picture taken to be posted later) I realized we had to do some quick shopping. Ever seen the programs where someone wins a 15 minute shopping spree and has to run around getting stuff, well I was the contestant today running around with your donations. We spent about $340 at BJ's after a slight panic attack.
I was using my PayPal debit card which had $289 on it, I thought PayPal would automatically suck any overage from my checking account, but I guess it doesn't work that way. We paid the $40 cash off the top then tried to use the debit card. At BJ's the error message reads "Use Another Card" when it fails, with no other details. This is where the panic set in after 4 tries using the PayPal card. Finally I had the sense to put in another $20 cash and try again and it went thru. It was almost socks for Christmas, but we came thru with a bunch of stuff.
We loaded the stuff into Chriss's truck, he had to stop by Greenville and deliver some banners and stuff, so he said he'd meet me at Spartanburg about 10:30.
I got to the GOP Spartanburg event about 9:45, there were already folks in the parking lot and we all got to chat about politics, life, and how uncomfortable suits can be.
(Bloggis Interuptus: Watching channel 4, 8pm, they just had a nice Ron Paul promo for the 11 oclock news!!!!)
A few people recognized the Jeep from the website, one said it had been used in a YouTube video, I introduced myself as Eric Burke, after all it's the name my parents chose for me, but mentioned Razmear in a chat and got a "Oh, dude, I know who you are now", which was kinda cool. General chatter went on til about 11am, lots of intros, folks from NC, GA, TN, AL and more.
Around 11:20 Chris showed up with the truck, I can't fault him for being late as he's been running around doing everything he can to make this event go smoothly. Of course it was a bit nerve wracking, waiting for the food to show, and some of the folks who brought food, like BeerMotor (who I still don't know his real name) went inside before unloading the food, because we didn't want to set up til the truck arrived.
Another RP supporter, who used to be a roadie (sorry i suck with names), helped me unload the truck and stack the food into a 3 foot high by 8 foot long wall of cans and boxes, we didn't buy much Spam, Spam is like $2 a can and not a great value, but there was a "sprinkling of Spam" on the top of the wall.
By noon just about everyone with reservations was inside. My wife Kelley had volunteered to help out in the children's room babysitting for the folks who traveled with their kids, so it was me and maybe 5 others hanging outside.
The news crews started to arrive shortly after everyone went in, the local FOX, NBC and CBS channels showed up (we don't have a local ABC channel, it's in NC) I plugged the Spam Spartanburg to the FOX guy, he seemed amused by the concept and I referred him to RonPaulForums.com. He said he could do a story about it but I'd have to email him a lot of details within the hour, and seeing how I don't have an Internet Implant yet, that wasn't possible. FOX news is a 10pm, so I'll see if there is any good news.
NBC (4) got in thru a side door, and CBS (7) showed up last. I chatted with the reporter (he might have just been a camera man, not sure), and he asked: so who is this Ron Paul, is he running for something?
So after saying he's running for President, i dashed over to the Jeep, mentioning on the way to someone "that reporter never heard of Ron Paul", and got him the "Slim Jim" info card, and someone else gave him a Ron Paul Goodie Bag before he went inside.
I went inside for about 5 minutes at some point to use the little boys room, and the crowd was standing room only, and the folks listening to Paul, we very impressed with his message, and I'm not talking the folks like us, I'm talking the folks who we thought were going to try to tear Ron apart. I think many minds were changed, or at the very least enlightened in Spartanburg.
The meeting center started to empty out about 1:30pm. Most people went in before the wall of food was set up and were shocked to see it on the way out.
Lots of questions about what it was, who it was going to, who started it, some guy Razmear was doing this, oh it's you, good job, and so forth.
A gentleman from the Board of Directors for the Spartanburg Boy's Club talked to me for a bit, he was impressed, and he is a strong supporter of the Childrens Shelter, and he asked that if we do this again to consider donating to the Boy's Club next time. Maybe the next city that does this can do that? I don't know this gentleman's name but it was obvious that he was respected in the community and he had that air of dignity about him. He even offered to help transport the food to the Shelter, but I said that we could take care of it, after all if we got it this far, we can get it another 4 miles. I think we made a very good friend.
Rachel, the Ron Paul Diva, did an interview with me for her YouTube channel, then I asked her if she wanted to help deliver the stuff. Chris had to take the truck to Greenville and I didn't want to impede his progress, so we had a 4 car caravan to the Shelter. Rachel tried to get it on her GPS, (she drives a really nice car, btw) but after several failed attempts, and because I already had the directions down on paper, we took off with the Jeep in the lead. There were no signs indicating what the shelter was when we got close, so there was some confusion getting to the right door, but after two phone calls to the woman who worked there we got to the right door.
This shelter, due to the cases it handles, does not have any signage, and the woman who met us said we could not take any pictures of the kids or the grounds, we honored her request. She did let Rachel take one picture of us with one of the cartloads of food.
They were shocked and awed with the amount of food we brought. There were also coloring books and crayons donated. This was the Happy Christmas moment, only instead of the 4 year old, I got to be Santa, it was awesome, and I'd go into detail, but my eyes are getting a bit moist making it difficult to see the monitor.
We gave her one of the Ron Paul Goodie Bags, many Thanks and Our Pleasures were exchanged, and we departed to Greenville to see Ron Paul.
Rachel had the Expo Center dialed into her GPS and we headed out with her in the lead. I had gotten in front of her on the highway near the exit and took the lead. Google maps have no basis in reality. I got to Exposition Road no problem, but due to construction there was no entrance on that road, making the 2nd left instead of the first would have been better, but we got there about 3:30 with only about a 2 minute delay caused by my navigation skills.
When we got inside, we heard Ron Paul's voice, and thought we were missing him, but it was only a video montage being played. I missed the intro by the Greenville GOP chair, and got seated about 10 minutes before Ron took the stage.
Ron was amazing and the room was just about full, maybe 10 rows behind me were empty and this was a BIG hall. I'm sure there will be video of the event, so I won't bother trying to document it here.
On the way out we stopped at the Granny Warriors RV, my wife got a button for $1, and a T-Shirt from "The Ron Paul Machine" folks a bit further down.
I didn't know this, but the Granny Warriors travel with a monkey, which was getting a lot of attention.
We hit the road home, because we didn't eat all day and it was about 5pm we stopped at a Waffle House on exit 44 on I85. There was an older gentleman inside who asked me "whats this Ron Paul Revolution thing" referring to my shirt, and noticing the Jeep outside. I was a bit tired to give the whole speech, so I told him I'd be right back and went to fetch some propaganda from the Jeep.
I brought in 2 sets of stickers and fact cards that I gathered from the seats at the Greenville rally, and gave one to him and his friend.
Food arrived as I got back in, and he sat and read while I devoured a double cheeseburger. Once he had determined that I had eaten enough, he started asking me questions about Ron Paul. We sat in the Waffle House for about 45 minutes after we finished eating chatting about Ron Paul, who he had never heard of, politics, the current state of the union and more. Again, he never heard of Ron Paul before today.
I learned this man was 60, had no internet access, his primary news sources were Foxnews, MSNBC and the weather channel, he is a VietNam vet, and he agrees with just about everything Ron Paul stands for. We talked about the declining dollar, corruption in politics, the war in Iraq, and more, again he agreed dead on with Ron Paul's opinions. Christmas part two! This guy is a regular at this Waffle House, and probably a few more diners, and he's a good talker and enjoys doing so.
To me The Waffle House incident was the topper on the day, showing that all you need to do is expose someone to Ron Paul's message and step back for a minute, and they will realize that Ron Paul is the right man to be President. Whomever designed the campaign "Slim Jim's" did a great job, and I'd try and put them in the hands of anyone you meet.
We got home about 7:30, then I started typing this entry.
Long day, I hope I did it justice here, and whatever I missed I'll be glad to answer, at least til I pass out.
Eric Burke
Anderson, SC
aka Razmear
Distribute Freely
The first stop was at BJ's in Greenville. I had called the night before to have them select $300 in food items hoping to just pick up a pallet and go. When I saw what they had selected (picture taken to be posted later) I realized we had to do some quick shopping. Ever seen the programs where someone wins a 15 minute shopping spree and has to run around getting stuff, well I was the contestant today running around with your donations. We spent about $340 at BJ's after a slight panic attack.
I was using my PayPal debit card which had $289 on it, I thought PayPal would automatically suck any overage from my checking account, but I guess it doesn't work that way. We paid the $40 cash off the top then tried to use the debit card. At BJ's the error message reads "Use Another Card" when it fails, with no other details. This is where the panic set in after 4 tries using the PayPal card. Finally I had the sense to put in another $20 cash and try again and it went thru. It was almost socks for Christmas, but we came thru with a bunch of stuff.
We loaded the stuff into Chriss's truck, he had to stop by Greenville and deliver some banners and stuff, so he said he'd meet me at Spartanburg about 10:30.
I got to the GOP Spartanburg event about 9:45, there were already folks in the parking lot and we all got to chat about politics, life, and how uncomfortable suits can be.
(Bloggis Interuptus: Watching channel 4, 8pm, they just had a nice Ron Paul promo for the 11 oclock news!!!!)
A few people recognized the Jeep from the website, one said it had been used in a YouTube video, I introduced myself as Eric Burke, after all it's the name my parents chose for me, but mentioned Razmear in a chat and got a "Oh, dude, I know who you are now", which was kinda cool. General chatter went on til about 11am, lots of intros, folks from NC, GA, TN, AL and more.
Around 11:20 Chris showed up with the truck, I can't fault him for being late as he's been running around doing everything he can to make this event go smoothly. Of course it was a bit nerve wracking, waiting for the food to show, and some of the folks who brought food, like BeerMotor (who I still don't know his real name) went inside before unloading the food, because we didn't want to set up til the truck arrived.
Another RP supporter, who used to be a roadie (sorry i suck with names), helped me unload the truck and stack the food into a 3 foot high by 8 foot long wall of cans and boxes, we didn't buy much Spam, Spam is like $2 a can and not a great value, but there was a "sprinkling of Spam" on the top of the wall.
By noon just about everyone with reservations was inside. My wife Kelley had volunteered to help out in the children's room babysitting for the folks who traveled with their kids, so it was me and maybe 5 others hanging outside.
The news crews started to arrive shortly after everyone went in, the local FOX, NBC and CBS channels showed up (we don't have a local ABC channel, it's in NC) I plugged the Spam Spartanburg to the FOX guy, he seemed amused by the concept and I referred him to RonPaulForums.com. He said he could do a story about it but I'd have to email him a lot of details within the hour, and seeing how I don't have an Internet Implant yet, that wasn't possible. FOX news is a 10pm, so I'll see if there is any good news.
NBC (4) got in thru a side door, and CBS (7) showed up last. I chatted with the reporter (he might have just been a camera man, not sure), and he asked: so who is this Ron Paul, is he running for something?
So after saying he's running for President, i dashed over to the Jeep, mentioning on the way to someone "that reporter never heard of Ron Paul", and got him the "Slim Jim" info card, and someone else gave him a Ron Paul Goodie Bag before he went inside.
I went inside for about 5 minutes at some point to use the little boys room, and the crowd was standing room only, and the folks listening to Paul, we very impressed with his message, and I'm not talking the folks like us, I'm talking the folks who we thought were going to try to tear Ron apart. I think many minds were changed, or at the very least enlightened in Spartanburg.
The meeting center started to empty out about 1:30pm. Most people went in before the wall of food was set up and were shocked to see it on the way out.
Lots of questions about what it was, who it was going to, who started it, some guy Razmear was doing this, oh it's you, good job, and so forth.
A gentleman from the Board of Directors for the Spartanburg Boy's Club talked to me for a bit, he was impressed, and he is a strong supporter of the Childrens Shelter, and he asked that if we do this again to consider donating to the Boy's Club next time. Maybe the next city that does this can do that? I don't know this gentleman's name but it was obvious that he was respected in the community and he had that air of dignity about him. He even offered to help transport the food to the Shelter, but I said that we could take care of it, after all if we got it this far, we can get it another 4 miles. I think we made a very good friend.
Rachel, the Ron Paul Diva, did an interview with me for her YouTube channel, then I asked her if she wanted to help deliver the stuff. Chris had to take the truck to Greenville and I didn't want to impede his progress, so we had a 4 car caravan to the Shelter. Rachel tried to get it on her GPS, (she drives a really nice car, btw) but after several failed attempts, and because I already had the directions down on paper, we took off with the Jeep in the lead. There were no signs indicating what the shelter was when we got close, so there was some confusion getting to the right door, but after two phone calls to the woman who worked there we got to the right door.
This shelter, due to the cases it handles, does not have any signage, and the woman who met us said we could not take any pictures of the kids or the grounds, we honored her request. She did let Rachel take one picture of us with one of the cartloads of food.
They were shocked and awed with the amount of food we brought. There were also coloring books and crayons donated. This was the Happy Christmas moment, only instead of the 4 year old, I got to be Santa, it was awesome, and I'd go into detail, but my eyes are getting a bit moist making it difficult to see the monitor.
We gave her one of the Ron Paul Goodie Bags, many Thanks and Our Pleasures were exchanged, and we departed to Greenville to see Ron Paul.
Rachel had the Expo Center dialed into her GPS and we headed out with her in the lead. I had gotten in front of her on the highway near the exit and took the lead. Google maps have no basis in reality. I got to Exposition Road no problem, but due to construction there was no entrance on that road, making the 2nd left instead of the first would have been better, but we got there about 3:30 with only about a 2 minute delay caused by my navigation skills.
When we got inside, we heard Ron Paul's voice, and thought we were missing him, but it was only a video montage being played. I missed the intro by the Greenville GOP chair, and got seated about 10 minutes before Ron took the stage.
Ron was amazing and the room was just about full, maybe 10 rows behind me were empty and this was a BIG hall. I'm sure there will be video of the event, so I won't bother trying to document it here.
On the way out we stopped at the Granny Warriors RV, my wife got a button for $1, and a T-Shirt from "The Ron Paul Machine" folks a bit further down.
I didn't know this, but the Granny Warriors travel with a monkey, which was getting a lot of attention.
We hit the road home, because we didn't eat all day and it was about 5pm we stopped at a Waffle House on exit 44 on I85. There was an older gentleman inside who asked me "whats this Ron Paul Revolution thing" referring to my shirt, and noticing the Jeep outside. I was a bit tired to give the whole speech, so I told him I'd be right back and went to fetch some propaganda from the Jeep.
I brought in 2 sets of stickers and fact cards that I gathered from the seats at the Greenville rally, and gave one to him and his friend.
Food arrived as I got back in, and he sat and read while I devoured a double cheeseburger. Once he had determined that I had eaten enough, he started asking me questions about Ron Paul. We sat in the Waffle House for about 45 minutes after we finished eating chatting about Ron Paul, who he had never heard of, politics, the current state of the union and more. Again, he never heard of Ron Paul before today.
I learned this man was 60, had no internet access, his primary news sources were Foxnews, MSNBC and the weather channel, he is a VietNam vet, and he agrees with just about everything Ron Paul stands for. We talked about the declining dollar, corruption in politics, the war in Iraq, and more, again he agreed dead on with Ron Paul's opinions. Christmas part two! This guy is a regular at this Waffle House, and probably a few more diners, and he's a good talker and enjoys doing so.
To me The Waffle House incident was the topper on the day, showing that all you need to do is expose someone to Ron Paul's message and step back for a minute, and they will realize that Ron Paul is the right man to be President. Whomever designed the campaign "Slim Jim's" did a great job, and I'd try and put them in the hands of anyone you meet.
We got home about 7:30, then I started typing this entry.
Long day, I hope I did it justice here, and whatever I missed I'll be glad to answer, at least til I pass out.
Eric Burke
Anderson, SC
aka Razmear
Distribute Freely