Rescue

  It was a chilly day in late March.  I was in the library, where I was most days.  There were two reasons why.  To check my emails and to be in a warm place.  The library was the place to be for most homeless people.  Some patrons and staff didn't like the idea of the homeless being there all day.  After all, they were dirty and smelly.  At least, that was the impression they had of the homeless.  Most of us were clean and just wanted to hang out in a public library.  We were public too.

 On this particular day, I was checking my email, and there was one from some guy asking me to come see him.  I didn't know who he was, but the place was near the public bus station downtown, and I figured that I could spend an hour in his office and keep warm.  I also needed the exercise to walk from the library over there.  

 The office was called the University of South Carolina Supportive Housing.  It was a division of the School of Medicine.  I thought he was going to offer a job to me, as I had a lot of resumes out there.  I walked in and told the receptionist who I was.  She said they would be right with me.  I was then ushered upstairs to a tiny office.  A man was in there with a desk, a computer, and two chairs.  He had me to sit down and introduced himself as Tom Bolton.  He then looked at me and said these words:  "A lot of people care about you."  I had no idea what he meant at first.  Being homeless meant that very few people cared whether you lived or died.  That was what society was like.  For this stranger telling me that a lot of people cared about me was about as exciting as winning the lottery.  

 As he explained, there were four groups of people who had lobbied Tom's office to get me off of the street.  It also turned out that these four groups all worked independently of each other for the same goal.  Two were from my church, and the other two were leaders in the community.  He wouldn't tell me names, but I found out later who three of the people were.  Tom told me that they could set me up in an apartment in Columbia.  I would pay a percentage of my income to them, and HUD would subsidize the rest.  He also told me that I would be assigned a case manager and be required to come to some counseling sessions once or twice a week.  Those sessions included becoming reacclimated to living by myself in society and not being homeless any more.  

 This was an answer to prayer.  I had prayed every night to God to deliver me from the hell of homelessness.  He did.  I also learned that the answer was on His time and not mine.  Tom also hooked me up with food stamps.  I had been too proud to get food stamps before.  They were for losers.  I figured out that I couldn't eat without assistance.  I was happy to get them.  I signed some papers, and he told me that an apartment would be available to me by the first of May.  I left his office with a big smile on my face.  

 For the next several days, I just smiled and sang praise songs.  Some of my homeless friends were happy for me.  Others were jealous, because they had been on the street longer than me.  They thought I had gotten favoritism because of who I knew.  God knew me, and that was all that mattered.  Hallelujah!  What a Savior!

Kelly

  While I was working on Andre's campaign, a mutual friend asked me if I would consider also working on a woman's bid to be the State Superintendent of Education.  Her name was Kelly Payne, and she was a school teacher in the Dutch Fork area near Columbia.  I went out to meet with her and strategize how we could try to get her to win.  I was impressed with her and said I would help.

 The launching of her campaign was at Edventure in Columbia.  We had a good event planned, except we didn't plan on pouring rain outside.  We had to move everything inside, and I got the attendees names and addresses, when they entered the building.  It was a good crowd with a lot of enthusiasm.  She was very charismatic.  

 I did two out of town events with her.  The first was in Hartsville.  It was on a Saturday, and we had it in a park near downtown.  I rode with the guy who introduced me to her.  We went by Darlington, and I saw the famous speedway.  It was a lot smaller than I had pictured it to be.  We rode around Hartsville, and I saw Coker College.  I think my father took some teaching classes there.  When we go to the park, my friend locked his keys in the car.  He called AAA, but it took them a while to get there.  The nearest AAA office was 50 miles away.  We set up our stuff in the park.  There was a makeshift stage already there, and other candidates spoke as well.  All of the volunteers for the candidates outnumbered the attendees, but it was a good event.  The AAA man came, and we were able to leave.

 The other event was in Conway.  It was much bigger, and had a lot more candidates there from around the state.  Some were running for Congress and other races.  We set up signs outside of the old Tobacco barn in downtown Conway.  It was hot.  The barn was hot.  One had to go outside near a river to cool off.  There was a good crowd that came.  Kelly made her speech, and she did a good job.  The problem she had was name recognition.  She was well known in the Columbia area, but not as much around the state.  She didn't win, but she was most appreciative for our work.  She was a class act.  You don't find that a lot in politics.  She would have made a good superintendent.  

Primary

  A Republican operative and I were going to Summerville, SC for a "fat cats" dinner.  As we were heading down there, he asked me about my campaign experience, and I started off with McGovern for President in 1972.  He about ran off the interstate and screamed "You're a Democrat?".  I told him no.  I am an independent.  I vote for the person, not the party.  I assured him that I was sincere my my desire to see Andre become Governor, because of the nice things he had done for me.  The man calmed down, and we headed on to Summerville.  He had MapQuest for the directions.  When we got to the exit, he went past it.  I asked him why, and he said because the directions had us going to Charleston and then turning back toward Summerville.  I told him to turn around at the next exit and take the Summerville exit.  It saved us around 45 minutes.  

 When we got to Summerville, we found this big farm on the outskirts of town.  The owner had money.  Our meeting was at the farm.  We were told we could work the crowd, but we couldn't eat.  After everyone was served, they let us eat.  Amazing food from the farm.  All but one of the candidates showed up.  She had to go to her son's soccer game.  That didn't sit well with those wanting to give money to the campaigns.  They had a straw poll, and she came in last.  Even the state senator who cried during his speech got more money than she did.  

 After the fiasco with Sanford, I went to a Christmas party at the State House.  There were actually two parties.  One was thrown by Andre and the other by Mark.  The crowd was big at Andre's.  There were a few people at Mark's.  I made a snide remark to the Comptroller General  about Mark.  I was called aside and was told he still liked Mark.  Oops.

 A week before the primary, Andre was travelling in the Myrtle Beach area with Mike Huckabee.  It was time to pull out the big guns.  Nikki Haley was having a rally at the State House.  Her big gun was Sarah Palin.  When I saw the crowd at that rally, I knew we weren't going to win.  The primary went to a run-off between Nikki and Congressman Gresham Barrett.  Nikki Haley won.  It was close.  Barrett had told me at the Summerville dinner that if he wasn't running, he would support Andre.  I also heard that from other folks, but politics can be unpredictable.  At the end of the campaign, Andre gave me a rather large and heavy framed portrait of the State House.  It is too heavy to hang on the wall.

Mark

  In May 2009, the SC Republican Convention was being held in Columbia.  We had a both in the convention center's hall, along with all of the other candidates and office holders.  Our booth was just across from the door into the meeting room and next to Senator Jim De Mint.  He brought in 500 signed copies of his new book.  He left with 495 at the end of the day.

 I took up a post near the entry door to the center.  It was my job to greet people, as they came in.  I also wanted this post, because I could see all the dignitaries.  As I was doing my job, I saw Governor Mark Sanford coming in with his entourage.  I stuck out my hand to greet him.  I told him who I was and that my cousin George was his doctor.  He brightened up and told me that he loved George.  We made a connection.  After everyone got into the hall, the convention started.  Andre gave me his credentials, so I could attend the convention.  I made notes of what each candidate said.  I had done a lot of opposition research on the candidates.  Most of the candidates were good people.

 In June 2009, the campaign was turned on its head.  The governor went missing.  His staff was told that he was hiking on the Appalachian Trail.  When a Governor is away and out of touch, the Lt. Governor takes his or her place.  His staff lied to us, when they said they were in touch with the governor.  They weren't.  A few days later, he was spotted at the Atlanta airport having flown from Argentina.  It was a big deal.  There were calls for him to resign. It would have been easy to criticize the governor, but I told Andre that he needed to take the high road, because of his office.  He took my advice. Representatives from all of the candidates and the governor met in Spartanburg, SC to figure out what to do.  A deal was struck that the governor would resign; Andre would become governor; and then he would not run for a full term, because he would be the incumbent and have an unfair advantage in the primary.  We did not know that the governor was in Aiken, SC with his mistress and a political friend over that weekend.  They were thinking of what to do.  Sanford had decided that he should resign for the good of the State.  The other two thought differently.

 On Monday, the plan was that there would be a press conference.  The governor would resign at noon, and Andre would become the governor.  Then, Andre would withdraw from the race and serve out Mark's term as governor, which would be about 18 months.  We were all ready to pack up the campaign and go home.  When noon came, Sanford announced he would not resign as governor.  Our mouths dropped open.  We had a deal.  The campaign was back on.  After Mark's shocking announcement, Andre just said that the plan that was brokered had fallen through.  The primary was coming up, and we had to get back on the road.  

Booth

  One cool thing a bout working for a candidate is that you get to go to the South Carolina State Fair and get in for free.  Since I was homeless by now, I had a lot of free time.  So, I volunteered to sit in the booth to give out material about Andre and stickers.  The other candidates had representatives, too.  It was a little crowded in the booth, but we carved out our spots.  Another cool thing was we got lunch for free.  If you have ever been to the fair, you know how much money that saved.

 Before arriving, everyone had to agree to the rules of the fair.  The main rule was that we couldn't go on the midway and campaign for our respective candidates.  If we did that, we would be asked to leave the grounds.  The candidates had to agree to that rule as well.  The idea of that rule was not to give an unfair advantage to one candidate over another, and to keep the fair's leaders from choosing sides.  I really would have liked to go through the fair and handing out "Andre" stickers, since that was what I was good at, but we all had to agree to the rule.

 The only female gubernatorial Republican candidate showed up at the booth.  She said she wasn't going to abide by the rules, because she thought it was stupid just to stay at the booth.  She wanted to "press the flesh" on the midway.  She got a few steps out of the booth, when a security guard saw her and told her she needed to get back to the booth.  As soon as he left, she was out on the midway campaigning.  Another guard saw her and escorted her back to the booth.  She then found a TV crew and had an impromptu press conference.  She was complaining about the rule that she had to agree to.  The head of the fair was asked for a comment.  He said that they had rules.  She was escorted off of the property, but she got a lot of free publicity.  People saw she was spunky.

 In January 2010, Haiti had a catastrophic earthquake.  The people of Columbia wanted to help.  Andre put out an announcement that they wanted to collect supplies to sent to Haiti.  On Sunday, his volunteers assembled on the block of Sumter by the State House.  We were there to get the donations.  I was still suffering from pneumonia, but I had to be there.  We had one semi-truck for the donations.  People started to come.  We had sections for babies, children, teens, and adults.  The donations started to flood in.  We were prepared for a block's worth of goods.  It ended up with two blocks worth of goods.  The line was about four feet high and five feet deep.  Diapers, clothes, toys, and more.  It was truly unbelievable.  We filled the truck and had to call for another one.  There were also a couple of SUV's that were filled.  The donations were sent to Greenville and flown out to Haiti.  It was a remarkable event, and all the glory was given to God.