Election day newspapers make friends of strangers
As people line up in front of the Los Angeles Times to buy copies of the Nov. 5 edition, there is a kindred atmosphere. They share personal stories and discuss the future of the country.
Shortly before 10 a.m. today, four people walked to the end of a growing line outside the downtown offices of the Los Angeles Times.
As they moved 10 yards together, they were making small talk. After 20 yards, they were discussing the nature of the African American community. After 40 yards, with easy laughter, they were dissecting the nation's future, its place in the world and the challenges facing the new president.
The group of four included Daniel Alawerdjian, a Republican who voted for Obama, and Doug Lange, a retired small-business owner from Santa Ana who also voted for Obama and has a mother who is 100.
Sallie Quinn, another in the group, remembered visiting Spain during demonstrations in the 1960s against dictator Francisco Franco. Spaniards, she said, took offense at any American's attempt to criticize their form of government -- given racial segregation in the United States.
"The whole world saw us as racist," she said. "Now we can hold our heads up high."
In the days since Barack Obama's election as the country's first African American president, the line to buy the Nov. 5 edition of the newspaper has become a living thing. Today was no exception. People began lining up at 6:30 a.m. as strangers and wound up as friends an hour later, knowing intimate details of each other's lives, before buying newspapers and departing, likely to never see each other again.
Los Angeles native Sam Deep stood for more than an hour to buy 50 papers for his friends and family.
"You don't often get an opportunity to stand with people you don't know and exchange opinions and smiles and philosophy," Deep said.
The line has stretched around The Times' building every day since Thursday, as people rushed to commemorate Obama's election. Times circulation Chief Jack Klunder said the newspaper has sold close to 500,000 copies of its Nov. 5 edition, and 20,000 printers' plates of the front page. He said the sale would end at 4 p.m. today; after that, the Nov. 5 edition will be sold online.
While the sale lasted, however, a coterie of vendors sprouted across the street, selling Obama buttons and T-shirts. One shirt proudly proclaimed Obama "Commander in Chief." Another had his photograph and that of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. A third featured the entire Obama family.
One vendor, Keir Myrick, said he'd sold more than 5,000 shirts since Thursday. A friend asked him to stand in line for newspapers.
