No, no, it isn't what you think. Even though we were in the Dem stronghold of the First Ward in downtown Houston, I wasn't attacked by a wild-eyed crazed liberal. I mean, seriously, what kind of crazy idiot would it take to look at the BigJolly and attack him? Heh, I love that third person stuff! Anyways, like I said, it wasn't some far out crazy liberal Dem. It was...

We'll get to that attack in a bit. First though, a bit of information from the blockwalk. Peggy Lindow ran and won the position of Precinct Chair for Precinct 1 in the Harris County Republican Party primary. Peggy is one of many new precinct chairs that will make a difference for the Repubs in the November election. Precinct 1 is smack dab in the middle of the inner loop of Houston, being on both sides of I-10 just west of I-45, with the bulk of it south of I-10. Click here to view a map.

So Peggy has been organizing her precinct, working with various campaigns, King Street Patriots, etc. Today, she organized this walk in conjunction with CD-18 candidate, John Faulk. Too bad other candidates didn't bother to help, especially judicial ones, but hey, what can you say? I saw Jack O'Connor stop by for a few seconds, and Mike Wolfe represented Chris Daniel, but that was it. Sad, that. But I digress.

Peggy was extremely organized. She actually started the "walk" at 7 am, hoping to catch joggers and bike riders early as she prepared for the walk. By the time I arrived at 8:45 am, teams were already returning from their blocks and getting information for another go-round. John was out there with his ice-cream cart, for which he is becoming famous! I think all candidates are hard-working but if you had to pin me down on the single-hardest working one, there is no doubt in my mind that it is John Faulk. If you would have told me last summer when I first met John that I'd be out blockwalking for him in 100 degree heat in the First Ward of Houston, I'd have laughed in your face. What can I say? I respect hard work. Sigh, I digress yet again.

As I was saying, Peggy was very, very organized. She had the 95 blocks of the First Ward set up in 3-4 block segments, complete with maps and voter registrations for each street. My partner was Pat (I forgot to ask permission to use her last name) and we were assigned a three block segment bordered by Sabine, Spring, Colorado, and Weber, with Ovid and Alamo in between. It was only about 30 homes but if you have a big turnout at these things, that is good enough. Took Pat and I about an hour and 15 minutes to complete the circuit.

We mostly handed out cards for John and talked about his campaign. I mean, if the other candidates aren't interested enough to participate, why bother? If we found a real Republican, then we gave them a complete packet, hoping they will take the time to look through it and vote for them. Sadly, we only found one of those! It was kind of funny when Pat, looking through the list that Peggy gave us, asked: where are the R's? We didn't have a single "R" on our list. But we did have a few addresses with 6 or more registered voters, with different surnames. Odd, eh? And some people say there isn't any fraud in Harris County elections. Right.

Blockwalking is fun because you meet cool peeps

We had several nice conversations but the best one, for me, was with Willie Barnes. Here you go, I'll embarrass myself and let you take a peek:

Yep, that's the BigJolly (there's that third person thing again) with Willie. Willie lives across the street from and works for Iglesia de Christo de Impact as a handyman. In addition, the house that we met at serves as a "recovery" house and he is the housemaster, helping 10 recovering addicts tty to make it back to a stable life. The church has two of these recovery homes, the one I was at and one two blocks over that houses 6 men. He was really proud of the church's Vacation Bible School, telling us that they had just completed the session with 400 children attending, which is pretty darn awesome if you ask me. On the last night of VBS, they bused the children to various suburban Church of Christ locations and each child received a complete portfolio of school supplies.

Ya know, that made my day, meeting Willie Barnes and hearing his enthusiasm for serving Christ.

Blockwalking can be hazardous to your health

Okay, here we go, finally. Let's talk about the attack. Pat and I approach a house on Weber. Pat walks up to the door and knocks, several times. Never did get an answer, even though it was obvious that someone was inside. And then, Pat whispers to me, don't move. Just don't move, be very careful. I'm thinking, uh-oh, SNAKE!. So I look down, nothing. Then I look up just a bit and, uh-oh, PIT-BULL! Yikes.

Now, I'm not one that is afraid of dogs, although after this experience, I promise you that I'll be a bit more cautious. What we have here was a pit-mix breed, I'd guess 35-40 lbs., female, between 1 and 2 years old. Not big but not small. I'm Mr. Cool and Calm, telling Pat, don't worry, just slowly walk behind me. Meanwhile, I'm looking at the dog and there are no warning signs at all - tail is wagging, hair is not standing, looks like she's smiling, you know. And then, BAM!, the damn dog strikes at me. I've raised Dobermans for 30 years or so, never have I seen this. This dog was FAST. Luckily, I had a bag full of literature and water in my left hand and moved it just enough so that the dog got a mouthful of bag. The thing is, my goal at that point was to protect my partner and that damn dog would have died if it had struck again. Perhaps it sensed it, perhaps it was just a cowardly pit-mix, but it didn't attack again. Pat made it through the gate and I followed, locking the dog in. I would say that this should be a lesson in never opening a gate but the dog belonged to a neighbor and came in behind us.

I know guys like Cory and Hamous think that pits/mixes are just like any other dog but I gotta say, again, there is something wrong with the DNA in these mongrels. Again, no warning, NADA! Just, BAM! But hey, at least it wasn't some foaming at the mouth angry liberal used to seeing nothing but Dems in the hood.

There you go, that was my day of blockwalking. The best part about it? Knowing that I'm out there and stalwarts of the Repub party, like D_n, think it is a waste of time. They just don't get it. One guy even told us: "man, I'm conservative and I've never seen a Republican here. Thanks.".

Here are some pics of the day.