The BobboSphere: Don't believe everything you think.

This was written about 2 am ­Central Time after we got back from the rally in Grant Park for Barack Obama on election night. It's been edited a bit since that time.

Just got back from Grant Park. We left for downtown around 8:30 pm and stepped off of the CTA Blue Line at around 9 pm. The Loop was pretty much closed off to traffic with lots of people in the street yelling, dancing and singing. Vendors were doing a brisk business in T-shirts and buttons. Best T-shirt slogan of the night: "Yes We Did!"

­The line to get into Grant Park stretched 8 blocks down Michigan Ave and we almost gave up and went home, but it finally started to move. Michigan Ave was a carnival of of drumming, dancing and yelling.

Right before the security checkpoint we were packed into a crush of people. It was pretty claustrophobic. Then I saw a familiar face in front of me: Bill Ayres. Bernadine Dohrn was right next to him. I had met each of them casually back in the old days of SDS and have been in a couple of modern meetings where Dohrn was present.  Dohrn might have recognized me if she had turned around, but she didn't. Then they disappeared into the crush of people ahead of us.

When we finally got to the security checkpoint, the cops just waved us through.

After getting through security we ran toward the area where the event was held because we could hear the invocation being given. We were out of the packed crowd and in the clear. Not knowing where to go next, we just followed the people ahead of us. Two people we had agreed to meet came out of nowhere and gave us big hugs. We probably never would have found each except by pure chance...even with cell phone communication.

We finally got to the field where it was all happening and stood toward the back because that was really the only choice by that time. Before us was a sea of Obama supporters. We could see the wide screen projection pretty well and the sound system was great. We didn't even know that Obama had won until we had been there about 10 minutes. I snapped some pictures with an old 35 mm camera, but it was dark and I'm no photographer so they probably didn't come out.

We stayed til the end and heard his whole speech. He channeled Lincoln, King, FDR and doubtless some others that I have forgotten or didn't recognize.

Just a few years back I was coming out of the Oak Park IL Library where one of Obama's aides was practically dragging people over to shake his hand. Obama looked awful lonely standing there so I went over and exchanged a few words and shook his hand.

Now he is president of the United States. It doesn't mean that racism is dead in this country, but I think its pulse is growing weaker.

I checked out the vote totals of my old hometown of Washington D.C. ---93% for Obama. My childhood-through-college home of Maryland was 60%, my present town of Oak Park was 82% and my adopted state of Illinois was 61%. Clearly I have lived in some really great places.

Now it's on to tap all of that volunteer enthusiasm and create the greatest social movement for justice this country has ever seen.

Yes we can.