Saving Graces - Elizabeth Edwards [133]
And then there was a worse moment. It was late one night. We’d gotten behind schedule, as the stops had lasted too long during the day. Now it was 12:30 at night, and we were making up time barreling through Kansas. John was lying on the bed, and I was sitting beside him talking to him. The door to our room was open, and I could see out the window across the narrow hall. Of course, it was night and there was nothing to see. And then, all of a sudden, there was something to see. There were hundreds of people on a train platform—where were we?—and there were signs and lights, and, saddest of all, flashbulbs going off as the train raced through what turned out to be Lawrence, Kansas. Those people came out, and we didn’t even slow down, I said. The train can’t go back tonight, John said, sensibly enough as the train barreled on. And then we looked at each other. But we can go back. I wrote an entry for the Kerry blog about how much John and I loved Lawrence. We’d traveled through when we were in law school, and a generous soul had fixed our ailing brakes for a more than fair price, which was pretty important to two students working their way through school. We would come back, we promised Lawrence. We went to bed unaware that later that night we would pass the Imus Ranch, where there were more people waiting, including children. We hadn’t even known it was scheduled. I only found out weeks later, listening to Don Imus one morning complain that the train had raced through there too without stopping.
All the little snags aside, Mort Engelberg, who put the train trip together, was responsible for one of the most splendid experiences a campaigner could ever have. I could have sat on the back of that train, talking to the folks who gathered along the tracks, at rallies and at train crossings, watching the country roll by for months if I had had the chance. Families gathered at the places where they knew the train would slow and waited, sitting on lawn chairs, the children playing beside them, a homemade sign ready to be hoisted when we came by. Men and women working in plants and shipping yards alongside the tracks would stop their work and wave their caps. How could you not love this? I liked walking through the press car, with papers and jackets and empty cardboard coffee cups strewn everywhere, then walking through the immaculate Secret Service car, grown men who weren’t on duty, sleeping upright in their seats in coats and ties. Although John and Cate and I each thanked Mort as we left him in Albuquerque and returned with the younger children to Lawrence, those thanks could not convey our appreciation for the gift of that incredible trip.
And then there was Lawrence. You should know we have a love affair with Lawrence. On a day’s notice, a rally was put together in a park, and then it rained and it had to be moved, and still thousands of people found us. John spoke inside and then went outside to talk to the thousands more who could not get inside after the fire marshal closed the doors, and he spoke again. When John was speaking to the crowd indoors, Jack, who was standing with me, whispered that he wanted to talk, too. Daddy’s talking. Another tug on my slacks. I want to talk. During the next round of applause in John’s speech, I went up to him and whispered that Jack wanted to talk. What’s he want to say? he asked. I shrugged. John was sure he was going