Tallahassee, FL: Ween '04

This is my first Halloween in New York. Last year, despite living here, I was in Tallahassee for the four weeks before the election. Somehow, in the chaos of those final seventy-two hours of canvassing and phone calls and Beat Bush pep rallies, Halloween got missed. Not just Halloween, but all of the preparation that goes along with Halloween. I don't remember a single pumpkin being carved, a single costume being worn, a single piece of candy corn entering my body or anyone else's.

It's strange, because I have very vivid memories of the rest of my time in Tallahassee. I remember our living conditions most clearly, on the top floor of a large, mostly abandoned building, which was also, conveniently enough, the location of our office. A local community organizer had managed to rent out a bunch of the rooms in the space to local progressive organizations, including ours, for practically nothing. He hoped to renovate the building into a progressive center for the community. We had been offered some alternative housing in the city, but there was something about living in the office that was vaguely appealing, sort of like the vaguely appealing idea of being locked in a mall after it closes.

For the most part, the entire second floor of the complex was empty. Three of us, Sam, Liz and I, bunked on air mattresses. At first we confined ourselves to one room, each living in old cubicles, but slowly we spread out. There was a kitchen and a shower. It was fairly comfortable. After about 11PM each night, later as the election neared, the last organizers would go home, and we'd take a deep breath and roam the empty halls.

One night, late, I heard noises coming from the kitchen. Inside, I found a woman eating a pizza and a little boy in his underpants. Given the fact that I was living in an old office building in the middle of Tallahassee, at that moment I don't think it struck me as particularly out of the ordinary. Later, I heard that a homeless woman had invented a fake "progressive organization" addressing homelessness, secured space in the building for the absurdly low rent, and promptly moved her family in.

Other memories: Getting a motel room with a TV so we could watch the Red Sox in the playoffs. A quick overnight trip to Biloxi, where Sam won $1,200 playing video poker (the money was spent quickly, and the casino was destroyed by Katrina). Driving through all of Florida's esteemed capital, counting the number of Wendy's restaurants in the city proper (I remember ten, but apparently it's just nine). If you're wondering what I was doing in the days before the election watching baseball, gambling, and counting the number of this or that fast food chain, I'd like to remind that you we lost and, in Florida, badly.

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On a happy note, the Tallahassee Progressive Center now seems to be thriving, with 22 tenants and a comprehensive website, surely in large part due to the determination of the community organizer who started it.