Chicago 2024, 11 p.m.

Kamala Devi Harris, the proverbial Woman of the Year and Donald Trump’s bad dream that keeps him awake at night, stands alone bathed in a river of colored lights atop a towering stage facing a stadium of followers, dreamers, seekers and screaming believers of all sexes, colors, and religions.

That includes me here alone in my living room with Ms. Kramer, my pure yellow, aging cockatiel who screams along with the crowd.

There she is, the candidate Kamala, after almost four years walking running, and climbing with hair blowing in the wind behind Joe Biden, retiring president of the United States, as if somewhere out there, destiny was writing her name in the clouds like one of the little airplanes that used to write “Drink Coca Cola.”

As her long hair tumbles over the jacket of a dark blue Hillary-style pantsuit, Kamala Devi Harris waits patiently for the thundering applause from what appears to be the entire state of California to subside.

The camera this night roams across a zillion faces of this sea of Democrats. It’s like the old days, when people in the streets and saloons were singing “Happy Days are Here Again” over their beers.

Here, in 2024 Chicago, old men and women in cowboy hats and derbies and kids with dreamy, excited eyes wave a myriad of cardboard signs and hold up posters that read MICHIGAN, UTAH, CALIFORNIA and MAINE.

And maybe there were a few Republicans who were passing by outside and came in to see what all the shouting was about. Welcome, Republicans.

Inside, they saw that it was all about this fiercely dedicated woman, a former senator and attorney general of California, being nominated on this hot August Chicago night to be the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate. Hurrah.

Nearby in the front row, beside Kamala’s husband and his handsome children, was the 60-year-old Timothy James Walz, a red-faced, white-haired former schoolteacher (a noble profession), football coach (even more noble), retired U.S. Army National Guard sergeant of 24 years, and 41st governor of Minnesota.

That’s all you need to know.

Tim is pure red, white and blue middle-American, born and raised in Nebraska. How American is that?

I drove and hitchhiked through Nebraska as a youth, and halfway through I gave up counting the flags hanging from front porches. Trust me, Nebraska is like most of the Midwest, very American.

Fred Astaire, Henry Fonda, Warren Buffet and Buffalo Bill Cody were all born in Nebraska. That’s good enough for me.

Tim’s fingernails are full of American dirt and grease, from gardening, shoveling snow, and cutting his and probably his neighbor’s lawns. This is what schoolteachers/coaches do in Nebraska.

By now, we all know that Kamala Devi Harris was born in Oakland, California. I once ran out of gas in Oakland, California. That’s all I know about Oakland, but everything else in her resume makes me happy.

I wish everyone good luck, and please give my iPhone number to Gov. Walz. I need my grass cut.

J.P. Devine is a Waterville writer.