Last Friday, at 11:15 in the evening, Nick and I went out to the Amtrak station in town. Kerry and Edwards had just finished a rally at Union Station in Kansas City, and their whistle-stop train was due to come through Lawrence about 11:30. No one was exactly sure what would happen then, but the rumor was that if there was a crowd, the train would stop and the Brothers John would say a few words to the party faithful of Lawrence, Kansas.

There was a crowd, alright. By 11:30, there were about seven or eight hundred people gathered on or near the tiny train platform. Most were Kerry supporters, armed with balloons, signs, etc., but there were a few Bushies and anarchists. A group of tough-looking middle-aged men held signs reading "Laborers for Kerry," and they were standing immediately in front of some College Republicans with Bush/Cheney signs. If there was going to be a riot, I figured, that was where it was going to occur. There, or where the anarchists were perched.

Nick had brought his fancy-schmancy camera, but there was no place to set up the equipment, so he had to hand-hold it. I kept a tight grip on the heavy tripod in case the event turned into Altamont, and I needed to protect myself.

And then we waited. About 11:45, the police began to speak over the megaphones. "The Kerry-Edwards train will be through in about an hour." There was a groan, but no one moved to leave. "There will be a regular Amtrak train coming through before that one, and we're asking everyone to be courteous and step aside so the passengers can get on and off." We all grunted our assent and began to play Bejeweled and Mah Jongg on our cell phones. Those without entertainment kept chattering to one another.

At about 12:25, the passenger train came through and, because the crowd was feeling loopy after standing for so long, we began to cheer and hold up our signs as the train pulled in. A man in front of me held a sign reading, "Thanks for Stopping!" Sleepy passengers looked out their windows in astonishment. Some of them waved and smiled, and in one window all that could be seen was a downward-pointing thumb, which reminded me of the green, disembodied creatures in Dr. Seuss' the Lorax. The passengers who disembarked did so to a presidential fanfare. At last the train was on its way, and we were all in great spirits.

At 12:45, we heard another train whistle and noticed that the crossing lights to the east had turned red. This was our moment. We began to cheer. We heard the screech of brakes and the train started through the station. There was a blur of hands and faces, and the "Kerry-Edwards" logo could be seen on each of the cars. Surely it would slow down, I thought. Was it slowing down? But the cars just kept flashing by, and then all at once the last one had passed and we could see a shadowy figure waving from the back of the train as it disappeared around a corner into the darkness. It was too bizarre to be true.

"That was it?!" someone cried out. And then we all began to laugh and disperse, although secretly our hearts were broken. Just a little.

But that wasn't it. Next day I heard a news report saying that Kerry and Edwards had intended to stop in Lawrence, but that there had been a miscommunication with the driver. To apologize for the screw-up, John Edwards arranged to make a speech on Sunday at Abe & Jake's, an enormous tavern and meeting place by the river.

We arrived about an hour early, and waited in a long, slow line of umbrella-toting locals to get through security. Even given the rain and the short notice, the place was packed. Several thousand people were still outside when the building reached capacity, so the Abe & Jake's people rigged up a mic system so that everyone outside could hear the speech. Those Abe & Jake's people are cool like that.

I was impressed. Edwards spent a good deal of time talking about how there are essentially two Americas—one for the elite, and one for everyone else. We knew this already, of course, but Edwards actually had some concrete suggestions for improvement. It's important to remember that he's the only one of the candidates not born to wealth and privilege, so when he speaks about making two piles of bills (pay now, pay later), you know that he's speaking from experience. He talked about growing up in a small town in the South, where his father worked in a mill, and how people's lives were so dependent on each paycheck that they could be devastated by a single mishap—a layoff, or an illness in the family. He also spoke about seeing separate drinking fountains, and separate sections of the movie theater designated for blacks and whites. This background gives some legitimacy to his crusade for social justice, and his passion for eradicating poverty. The latter, incidentally, is not exactly a "sexy" issue, but Edwards seems determined to focus on it anyway. I remember during one of the early debates, when he used half his time to answer a mediator's question and spent the rest talking about inequities of class and race. He doesn't get nearly enough credit for this.

And he brought his family. His wife, Elizabeth, has become quite a celebrity in her own right; she's been blogging on the official Kerry-Edwards site, and her husband calls her a rock star. Their children were on stage, and their little girl was tugging on John's hand for much of the speech.

Afterward, Edwards even went out and made a second speech for the crowd outside. Again—very impressed. I think he's going to be a real asset for Kerry.

By the way, I'm dying to make a joke about "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God," but I think I'm the only one who remembers that from Early American Lit. For the curious, "Sinners" was your classic fire-and-brimstone sermon, written and delivered by a wild-eyed minister by the name of Jonathan Edwards. But no matter. I shall move on, even if the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse bar my way.

One unrelated political addendum. A few months ago, William Jefferson Clinton came to speak at Allen Fieldhouse in Lawrence. This was to commemorate the opening of the Robert J. Dole Institute of Politics, for which Clinton was the first official speaker. Turns out Clinton and Dole are great friends, and their respect for each other was obvious throughout the proceedings. Dole made a gracious speech introducing the former president, and he was full of intelligent, yet self-deprecating jokes. "Lawrence is the place in Kansas where I always get the most compliments . . . and the fewest votes." Then Clinton got up, said he was tired of being Bob Dole's straight man, and the show got rolling.

I brought my digital camera, but the lights were funky so I had a hard time getting any decent shots. Oddly, the ones with the flash looked darker than the ones without, but at least they were clear. The ones taken without the flash looked like experiments in psychedelia: colored lights streaking across the frame; Bob Dole's head merging into Clinton's (what a political coup that would be!). They were a mess. So here's one that looks as if it was taken from inside a mausoleum. The Crypt Keeper is just out of the frame.