We’re back in Cleveland for a few days and we have just posted a photo-essay/video about the campaign on this site. Stephen Piscura, a photo-journalism student at Kent State University, followed us around the better part of two days recently and captured some of the essence of our campaign, and of our life in the city. God has given Stephen quite a talent, as you will see…
6/14/07
We went to an Assemblies of God Wednesday night service in Bellevue, Ohio, last night. Pastor John Ginty and his wife Jodi told me they used to be involved with the “Open Air Ministry” in LA’s Watts area. Amidst alcohol, drugs, violence, police helicopter search lights… John would walk into this area at, among other times, midnight on a Saturday — playing guitar and talking about Jesus. “We were literally putting our lives on the line any time we went down to this project (Jordan Downs Project),” Jodi said. Jodi and John talked about gang members turning their lives over to Christ, children finding hope in their Children’s Ministry, and so on. The next day, druing a whistle-stop event, I told the editor of The Bellevue Gazette that the nation could use way more of this type of “holy boldness.” Note: Bellevue’s Brian Oldo has caught some of this ‘boldness’ when it comes to politics. He told me that he often gets behind political causes. His last was helping to push to raise the minimum wage in Ohio. He said he and a group of advocates went to various nearby towns (“Republican strongholds,” he said.) and stumped for the cause. It passed.
6/13/07
“average JoeOhio Tour cont.” I stumped early in the morning at Rosie’s Soup & Such Restaurant in Tiffin, Ohio. Great place! Owner Lori Brown was buzzing about serving patrons, and inbetween trips to the tables, was stirring something in a big pot on the stove. One of the customers, out of the blue, voluntarily got up and took over the stirring so Lori could wait on a new table. How’s that for small town camaraderie? …Later in the morning, we did a whistle-stop on the downtown square in Tiffin. A former Ethics professor from Heidleberg University here told me he didn’t think it was ‘ethical’ that our nuclear proliferation was sparking similar proliferation all over the globe. (What’s more, he said he and his wife regularly attend vigils for peace with a group of other peace activists on the square here.) As a spin off from this conversation, I told reporter Zachary Petit from Tiffin newspaper that the U.S. has nuclear missiles aimed all over the world. It’s only “common sense” that other countries like, oh I don’t know, Iran, North Korea… would be racing to develop their own nuclear weapons to protect themselves. Note: Tiffin attorney Martin Koop stopped by the whistle-stop. He told me he’s running for city council as an independent and is going door-to-door to get his message out. He told the Tiffin newspaper reporter that he liked how I was taking the “politics out of the politics.”
6/11/07
Average JoeOhio Tour cont.: While in Bluffton, we stayed on Dan and Cindy Basinger’s farm. Dan told me he’d recently read a story about a rock singer who converted to Christianity. He was sitting in a pew during one of his first church services and leaned over to a man next to him. “When are we going to do it?” He asked. “Do what?” The man replied. “Do what Jesus did (heal the sick, help the poor, set captives free…).” The man replied again. “Oh, we don’t necessarily do that. We just mostly talk about what Jesus did.” … We did a whistle-stop event in Findlay, Ohio. Andy Black approached me and said one of his main issues was the environment. (In regard to the environment, he recommended the book Animal Vegetables and Miracle “…about the ecology of local food and the toxic logic of industrual agriculture.”) I told him that the environment was one of our main issues as well. I then told a reporter from the Findlay Courier newspaper that we had researched wind turbine projects in California and Oklahoma. What’s more, this part of Ohio (with it’s flat land and steady breezes) would be excellent for similar non-polluting, wind energy projects. I said as president, I would also push for subsidies to get farmers to “plant a row of wind turbines” on their farms.
6/9/07
I gave a talk to a Men’s Fellowship Group at St. Charles Church in Lima. I said part of our platform calls for Americans, almost across the board, to cut back lifestyle-wise and help more in the Third World. Out of this group of guys, one had gone to Belize, South America, on a missions trip and others were involved with various outreach projects to help in Mexico. Besides the social justice aspect, another thing that struck me about the group was their earnest striving for a deeper sense of spirituality in their lives and in their families in general. They meet once every two weeks to discuss the gospels and to support each other in their faith walks. Note: After the talk this morning, I stumped at the Farmer’s Market (“Buy Local”) in Bluffton, Ohio. One vendor, Dena McClure from Lima, was selling homemade soap and witnessing at the same time. Her t-shirt said: “When Jesus said love your enemies, I think he probably meant don’t kill them.”
6/7/07
average JoeOhio Tour cont.: We stopped in Kenton, Ohio, where we talked with Charles Shotwell. He said if he were president, he’d withdraw the troops from Iraq now and put warships in International waters close to Iraq to monitor potential, future terrorist attacks toward our shores. This got me to thinking. Maybe it would make sense, common sense, to withdraw the U.S. troops from Iraq now and position our warships out in those International waters for another reason. With our troops gone, it would conclusively show whether the insurgents would back off, or not. What’s more, it would conclusively show whether our exit would plunge the nation into civil war, or not. If these situations got worse, we could always send the troops back in to quell some of the escalation. But how can we definitively know, either way — if we don’t try. Note: Mr. Shotwell also told me he is a staunch gun proponent. And with a name like “Shotwell,” well, is there any wonder?
6/5/07
“average JoeOhio Tour” cont: In Morrow County, we visited the town of Cardington where we passed out campaign info at a youth league baseball game, then we walked about the town passing out info as well. Afterward we went to Suz-e-q’s (“It’s not you’re mama’s home cooking.“) for a burger. I put a flyer on the bulletin board and wrote: “Suz-e-q I love you!” Once again, we’re doing this without a paid PR consulting staff, or anything… We then went to Mt. Gilead, Ohio, hometown of Warren Harding, the 29th president of the U.S. We stumped at Sames & Cook Coffee Shop (great coffee!) in the downtown area. There I talked with Ralph Rapp, who is a retired math teacher. He told me he believes standardized testing is one of the biggest problems in education today. He said it discourages creativity on the part of the teachers to assess and teach to the needs of individual students. What’s more, he added that often information taught for the standardized tests is extraneous for many students. I told the Morrow County Sentinel that our education platform would line up with this as well. Note: While jogging through Mt. Gilead, we lost a bolt on our stroller. Joe at “Joe’s True Value Hardware” fixed it for free and then gave the kids some Tootsie Rolls and our dog a doggie treat. I just love small towns.
6/4/07
We stumped in Galion, Ohio, at the Pelican Coffee Shop downtown. Galion’s informal town ‘brain trust’ meets for coffee in a back room here every morning… Later we interviewed Fr. Bob Haas, who is at Galion’s St. Joseph’s Church. He does mission’s work in the South American country of Belize. In a village of 2,000 people in Belize, Fr. Haas (and steady groups of volunteers) have transformed the St. Vincent Palotti School. When they started the work, the school was “dark, smelly, hot and generally uncomfortable,” said Fr. Haas. What’s more, most of the 93 students had to walk 12 to 22 miles to attend. All these conditions led to poor attendance and little motivation to learn. What’s more, no St. Vincent Palotti School youth had ever gone to high school. However the volunteers rehabbed the school, adding ceiling fans, better ligthting, desks, bulletin boards, blackboards, a new paint job… And money was raised for high school scholarships. Now attendance is high, students are more motivated and some are, for the first time, going to high school. Note: One of Fr. Haas’s projects is getting books for a library at the school. (Belize is English speaking.) “Children there don’t read very well,” said Fr. Haas, “because they simply don’t have much to read.” Donations for the Belize Project can go to the: St. Joseph Mission Fund, 135 N. Liberty St., Galion, Ohio 44833.
6/3/07
We recently stopped in New Washington, Ohio, (pop. 1,000) — as preparation for soon being in ‘Old Washington (D.C.). We stopped to get gas at Hiler’s Service Center, a throw back to the gas stations of yesteryear where you can probably still get air for free. Hiler’s Craig Green tells me New Washington is the first town in the country to have chicken hatcheries (circa the late 1800’s). A neice of the service station owner just got a full scholarship to the University of Kentucky for volleyball. And Buckeye Central High School here has won four state titles for volleyball… Cranberry Township Trustee Louis Niedermier told me he takes pride in the township budget always being balanced, in no small part because of his and the other two trustee’s work. Niedermier said the biggest budget item seems to always be roads, and he and the trustees often pitch in to fill pot holes, lay black top, mow along the side of the roads… Note: In this spirit, my campaign promise is to mow the White House lawn regularly when I get to D.C. — to help balance the Federal Budget.
6/2/07
While in Wellington, Ohio, we talked with Rick and Linda Hatton. Rick facilitates a Bible Study at First United Methodist Church here and was preparing to give a Sunday Sermon tailored to the 2007 graduates. He gave me an advanced copy of the talk, which defined real success in life as looking to Jesus for our source of identity, direction and meaning. “That meaning is to be not just ‘all you can be.’ If that is all you achieve in life, you may have a very comfortable life, you may have a very impressive life to others — and you will have a very poor life,” Hatton wrote. And he added that people should not pursue purely self oriented goals, but rather they should pursue what they discern God wants for their life.