Barack Obama and his Chicago Home - Woodlands resident

Getting out and about the neighborhoods often reaps surprising stories. So it was with this little 87 year-old lady. Sitting outside on a bright beautiful typical spring day here in the southeast, she was watching me as I passed by, so I decided to go over and talk to her. After a few normal greetings and introductions, she goes into the garage and pulls out this heavy iron chair, picks it up and puts it next to hers. "Here! You sit down and relax for a while."

I was out trying to get people to vote in the coming May election. So I took a break. We talked about families of course, and then she breaks out with "I like Obama. I am going to vote for him. Do you know that I used to live in his home?" Hmmmm I thought, this is going to be unusual. "Yes, we used to live by a church and they held Sunday School in our home. That house now is Obama's home in Chicago. We lived close to the water and shared this home many years ago with others. Our children attended that Sunday school.

She told me to wait a minute and and she would get a photo of it. So she went in the house and brought out two photographs. "Now look at this", as she pointed to a house from a newspaper clipping. When I saw this in the newspaper, I told my son, there is something familiar about this house." He said, "isn't this our home in Chicago?" "Yes, it is. Now look at this", as she points to the same house in an old photograph she hangs in her house. "It is not much different. They added some windows on this side of the house and re-did the front porch, but not much more." So now you are a celebrity. "Oh no! I am just a person here in The Woodlands, enjoying this beautiful weather."

You can't help but love to get to know people like this lady. She was a delight to talk to, but I had to get on with the business at hand. One of these days, I will pass by there again looking for her. And by the way, she insisted on moving that heavy iron chair herself. She told me about the chair she was sitting in. She said nowadays, someone converts this exact web chair into an expensive leather strapped chair. "Mine just falls apart over time."