Riding home from the Denver National Convention on the light rail August 26 kind of felt like sitting around a campfire listening to someone with a flashlight under his chin; combining politics and sleep deprivation makes everything seem shadowy.
The Hillary Fest at the Pepsi Center went well enough; one after one, her political friends, supporters and representatives of key states got their shot on the podium without being subversive. Still, I had to wonder when a delegate from Mississippi on the train remarked he was still casting his vote for Hillary during roll call. He felt duty-bound to the people he represented.
I reiterated anticipating a Hillary uprising; after all, Hillary Pink Shirts congregated on the streets all day. I caught one earlier when she was separated from her group. "What is it you hope to accomplish on Hillary's behalf?" I asked.
"I'm just celebrating Women's Suffrage," she said.
The Mississippi delegate shook his head. "Oh, some of them are planning a coup alright. I've been getting some very disturbing e-mails."
"You have to wonder who's behind them," I remarked, but he declined elaborating. Also, we were at the end of line.
I was lucky to make it to the end of the line. My seat companion, one of the few present without plastic tags hanging from his neck, remarked that the 16th and California station sign announced the Lincoln Station closed by some kind of accident, requiring shuttle service from Dry Creek Station.
"What kind of accident would close two stations?" I asked, imagining derailment and explosions, before he corrected himself to the County Line Station.
An event security guard next to me, who had just returned from escorting the Governor and Mayor to the James Taylor show, said that Arapahoe Station was closed the other day, speculating it had to do with finding some guns in a car.
Now I was really confused. "You mean those guys arrested in the plot that officially wasn't a plot?" She wasn't sure, but she did know through work that a protest was anticipated at Fiddler's Green the next day; something about a gold mining company's offices.
Protests in the suburbs? And they aren't wearing pink shirts with matching nail polish?
Disembarking, a fellow traveler approached the officer lineup standing with crossed arms in front of three police cars, something I thought I was getting used to downtown (although one carrying an automatic weapon crossing my path today at the Convention Center still made me jump).
She returned to the parking garage reporting, "They said they found some white powder. Turned out to be baking soda."