While Sarah Palin was on her national book tour, she made only one stop in the state of Oklahoma, in my hometown Norman, at our local bookstore Hastings. Hastings is a southern chain of bookstore/music store/video rentals that quite successfully competes with Borders and Barnes and Noble. People began lining up at 3:30pm the day before she was scheduled to be there in order to be among the first 500 who were guaranteed to get their book signed. I'm not a Palin supporter by any stretch of the imagination, but since she is a major part of the current political gossip circles, I was curious, so I parked and walked in to see for myself. Also, I'd been invited by some friends to join the picket line of anti-Palin supporters, which was the side I preferred to be on anyway, so I thought I should show up and join in for a few minutes.
For as much hype and publicity the event had received, there really weren't very many people there. It started at 7pm, and when I got there at 8pm there were maybe 300 people in line, looking quite cold and wistful, as if they were beginning to doubt how good of an idea it was to come out and stand around in a parking lot for 5 hours in 30 degree weather to see a one-time governor with lofty ambitions of becoming president.
I spent about 20 minutes walking around snapping pictures of freezing Palin supporters and chatting with the picketers. I voted against waiting until the end for her to come out, and instead gladly hurried back to my warm car.
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