Off topic here, I know, but my mind is still spinning around Obama, President-elect Obama and the Democrat's election night party last Tuesday in Portland. Until I write this, I won't be able to write anything else.

I took Roxie down to the Oregon Convention Center for the big party, past her bedtime before we even got there. She's been hooked on Obama since the primary last winter, back when she was half-way through kindergarten.

That this will be her earliest political memory. This election. This night. This president. Wow. I mean. Wow. Me, I'm stuck with a 36-year-old snapshot image of Richard Nixon's motorcade passing. Warren, OH, five days after my third birthday.

But, Roxie. She's got Obama and I know just the moment I want her to hold, the one she'll detail when she tells my great-grandchildren about the night he was elected.

There are 7,000, maybe, 8,000 people at convention center and John McCain is on both big screens conceding the race. We're at back edge of the crowd where it's less claustrophobic, Roxie on my hip so her head is the same height as most adults in the room.

You can't hear McCain over the noise.

There's an older African American woman, late 60s, early 70s, coming out toward the edge from deeper in the crowd and she stops in front of Roxie. Two teenagers behind her stop, too.

The woman takes Roxie's hand and holds it, looks her brown eyes into Roxie's blues.

She says. "We did this, baby. You and me."

And, I realize, for the first time in their lives I have hope for world my girls are growing into.