Someone Who Fascinates You and Why

So I'm behind on the thirty day writing challenge, but I told myself I wouldn't be able to write every day, so I'm not beating myself up about it. Just pick up and keep going when you can, I instructed myself.

I have a triumvirate of three women in history that I have admired for most of my life - Laura Ingalls Wilder, Helen Keller, and Anne Frank. I read everything I can about them. I don't have the new Laura Ingalls Wilder autobiography, but it's on my wish list.

I know this will sound corny, but the person who fascinates me the most these days is President Barack Obama. I have admired him since the first time I heard him speak, when as Senator Obama he gave the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention for then-Presidential candidate John Kerry. When he concluded his speech, I looked at my roommate and said, "He's going to be president someday."

When he was still the senator from Illinois, he came to the Texas Book Festival in Austin, to sign copies of his book Dreams of My Father. I knew people would start lining up sometime in the middle of the night for the book signing. He would be in an outdoor tent, and it was a chilly November day. So I did not go, and it is one of many regrets I have in my life. It would have been a very brief encounter, but I know it would have been meaningful to me for the rest of my life.

I have an acquaintance who greatly admired and believed in two men - cyclist Lance Armstrong, and former senator and presidential candidate John Edwards. Of course both men were incredibly respected individuals who fell from grace amid terrible scandals. I worry that this will happen to me with President Obama. So far he has managed to be one of the cleanest politicians ever, meaning no political or personal wrongdoings. I hope that continues. I believe in him, as a person, and as our president. I believe he has a wonderful heart and wants everyone in this country to succeed. I adore pictures of him with children. It hurts me when people speak so ill of him and tear him down. I think he has done so much good for this country, and would have been able to achieve even more if the Republicans had not made it their life's ambition to work against him in hopes he would fail.

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