Mary Maher, an American-born former Irish Times journalist and trade union activist, has returned to the United States hoping to make a difference in the presidential election. This the first in a series of weekly reports between now and polling day.
The man outside the supermarket in Pittsburgh's Deutschtown wondered how he could get an absentee ballot. I recited the number of the Allegheny County Board, urging him to make that phone call with the standard canvassing chant: "Every vote counts!"
"Well, not in every state," his friend said. "Remember 2000? But I guess God has punished those people for what they did, huh? Ohhhh, that's a terrible thing to say," he added with an evil grin. We all laughed heartlessly. Sometimes black humour is all that keeps the Democratic side going.
But that was Thursday morning, when apprehension about the presidential debate was at its worst. After Kerry's performance, we who accost supermarket customers waving voter registration forms have been on recharged batteries.
We aren't on the Democratic side officially, and we aren't quite canvassing either. We are a political action group operating under Section 527 of the tax code, which permits us to campaign on issues but not for candidates. Like the other 30 some major "527s" working across the country, our sole job so far has been to register new voters right up to the deadline at 5 p.m. today. The strategy is based on a simple premise: if enough of the poor and socially marginalised could be persuaded to vote, the Republicans wouldn't have a chance.
Our group are the "Heroes", and we've registered 800 new Pittsburgh voters for the past few weeks. That's gender non-specific - and the team includes eight men and 10 women, aged 20 to 65, mixed racial backgrounds. All but two, myself and another interloper, are members of Local 1199 of Service Employees International Union.
And of course we have the T-shirts: purple, with "HERO 1199 SEIU" in shining red and yellow letters.
As Service Employees International Union is the largest union in the AFL-CIO family, people tend to draw conclusions about us, though we never mention Kerry.
Some Heroes have been on the ground since April, and we sling the title around quite casually now, as in "the Florida Heroes are being evacuated" or "a hundred more Heroes are coming down this week from New York". With 21 electoral college votes, Pennsylvania is second in the swing state stakes only to Florida, and Pittsburgh is a natural habitat for Democrats.
Nowhere more so than Deutschtown. German steel mill workers were the first to settle here in the 19th century, followed by Irish and Italians. Rows and row of streets run back into the hills, terraces of three- and four-storey frame houses, most of them shabby, with faded paint and rusted railings. Weeds sprout through the cracked pavements, the pavements are pockmarked with holes.
On the river front, facing Pittsburghs's steel and glass modern skyline, some signs of urban renewal are evident. There's a small square of new subsidised housing, built by the local council, and a few nicely restored 19th-century houses with plaques from the Deutschtown Historical Society identifying their original dates and owners.
A few doors down from the house built for Hugh MacNeill in 1869 is the Alleghany United Church of Christ, where free dinner is available every Sunday afternoon. Margaret, who organises the ribs and fried chicken, potatoes and beans, said they get about 100 homeless every week, black and white, men and women.
The dim hall was packed. We circled the long tables, brightly asking who'd like to register to vote. No answers; arms circled more protectively around plates, eyes shifted the other way. Finally a rheumy-eyed white man signalled me. "I had a voter's card but my address is a post office box now. Can I register?"
"Certainly," I said, hoping it was true.
We went out to sit on the steps in the sunlight, and one of the church workers followed anxiously. "You're OK for a few minutes, I guess, but if you sit here long the neighbours will call the police. We get the paddy wagon 'round sometimes three times on a Sunday if there's two, three people on the steps."
My voter was painfully slow at filling out his form. I guessed him to be in his 70s; when I glanced at his birthdate, I see he's 52. Hand shaking, he finally completed his signature and handed it over. "I'm a lifelong Republican," he said proudly.
The only new buildings in Deutschtown are the fire station, the gas station, the massive public housing project and the supermarket, which has become the community centre by default because there is nowhere else to shop. It's a good place to catch the unregistered.
There are abstainers, including quite a few Jehovah's Witnesses, as well as the common garden protesters: "No difference between 'em. Look at Clinton, he promised national health, but we didn't get it. I ain't voting again, no way."
There are the uninterested who can be coaxed, like the disdainful 18-year-old who told me: "Oh well, I'll fill it out for you, but I really don't see the point in trying to decide which is the lesser of two evils."
In the third category are the change-of-address people who thank you fervently, take in your T-shirt and badges, and share confidences. Most of them have been about Iraq.
"I've always been a Republican, but I'm voting for Kerry," a man in a Hawaiian sports shirt said. "I'm 58, and I've seen all these wars, and the only good one was World War Two. We did the right thing there. Korea was so-so, Vietnam was bad. But this one . . . " He shook his head. "That man's put us into something crazy. He's dangerous."
A middle-aged nurse said: "You know, this is the first election in my lifetime that has kept me awake at night worrying. I get butterflies in my stomach thinking about that war and what it could lead to."
Another woman, getting on in years and apparently confused about which war we're worrying about, clasped the hand of the young Hero on our team and said: "I know it's black boys like you being sent out there to die, and I think it's terrible. You see my address on this form? If you need to hide you can come right here anytime, I'll be glad to take you in."