Sunday, Aug. 25
My wife Betty, daughter Jordan, and I drove up from our home near Cairo Friday morning. Illinois is a long state as it is almost 400 miles from our home to Chicago, but the traffic was not bad and we arrived in Chicago about 4:30 in the afternoon. We checked in at the Drake Hotel where the Illinois delegates are staying, unpacked our bags and walked to Grant Park for the opening convention festivities, including the Aretha Franklin concert.
Saturday we saw the air and water show, took in the stores on Michigan Avenue and went to Navy Pier for the convention welcoming reception for the delegates and the media. Delegates are easily out numbered. Sunday I was able to obtain pre-convention passes so that my daughter could see the convention floor before she had to return home for school Monday. I look forward to getting down to business tomorrow.
Saturday, Aug. 24
As I prepare to attend the Democratic National Convention next week I think back to 1968, the last time the convention was held in Chicago. I was 14, a freshman at Shawnee High School in Wolf Lake, Ill., and already very much a political junkie.
The year started with Eugene McCarthy’s near upset of Lyndon Johnson in New Hampshire. I personally went to see Bobby Kennedy, who had John Glenn with him, Eugene McCarthy, and George Wallace as they made visits in or around southern Illinois.
When LBJ announced that he would no longer be a candidate, my father, an avid supporter of Johnson, was deeply disappointed. However, my father said Humphrey was a good man and we should support him, which we did.
Politics also had a local meaning as my father, Connell F. Smith, was the Democratic candidate for coroner in Alexander County in 1968.
The one positive memory I have of watching the convention on TV was the introduction of George Foreman, the 1968 Olympic Boxing gold medalist, who held a small American flag in his hand. It seemed the only thing all delegates could agree on that year was appreciation for Foreman’s victory in Mexico City.
