Any of you Texans goin to your precinct convention tonight?

If you do, would you consider leaving a little report on what it was like? Just click on the comments link at the bottom of this post and give us a little first-person report.

Take your time. There is no deadline pressure here.

Me, personally, I'm not going to my precinct convention, although I did go to one once.

It was the 1984 presidential primary and I was residing in Galveston.

A friend of mine who worked at the now-defunct alt newspaper on the island (anyone remember InBetween Magazine?) was politically active in the Dem party and recruited some of his pals to show up at the precinct gathering after the polls closed at 7 p.m.

He was supporting Gary "Monkey Business" Hart and wanted some help.

So I showed up.

You might remember that the Rev. Jesse Jackson was running for president in '84.

Our precinct was in a well-integrated neighborhood of Galveston (as opposed to the West End, where a lot of the white folks move so their kids can go to mostly-white elementary school) and it became quite clear which way the political winds were blowin that night in our Galveston neighborhood.

There was about five of us, all white, gathered on one side of the room, proclaiming our support for Mr. Monkey Bidness, and on the other side of the room were about 300 folks, all of them African Americans, siding with the Rev. Jackson. (I don't remember what Mondale's turnout was) ....

Anyhow, that gave me a genuine, first-hand impression of what it's like to be in the minority. I figured, Jeez, those black folks go through that every day, just about. They're always in a roomful of white people, so to speak.

Anyway, I suspect tonight will be different, at least a little bit. Sure, there'll be a lot of black folks on the side of the room where Barack Obama's supporters are gathered, but there also will be a lot of white folks and brown folks and maybe even some Asian Americans.

So times have changed, maybe.

I could be wrong, but I don't think so.