THOMAS GOES A' CANVASSING

Thomas Nephew went canvassing last weekend, and I'm sure he did a better job at it than his typically self-deprecating post would indicate. Here's a taste of his narrative:

I took a deep breath before knocking on the first door; I've done this before, but it was about twenty years ago. Naturally, no one answered, and in fact "N/A" turned out to be the typical result of the day. One difficulty was that we often had addresses, but not apartment numbers; and the doorbells we'd find inside the entrance were often not labeled. We'd write "sorry we missed you!" and the local campaign phone number on a Kerry flier and slip it through the mail slot or under the door. But often people had simply moved -- or in a few cases, had been forced to move: we saw three or four padlocked residences and one that was wrecked and abandoned.

Despite that, the neighborhoods we worked were were pleasant to canvass. There was a block party going on at one street corner and school yard -- a DJ with CD's and loudspeakers, picnic tables in the street, a bouncing tent for kids in the school yard.

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