knew and who absorber who he was who taught obama community organizing or something like that. obama at one point actually wrote a paper in which he discusses alinsky. alinsky seems to have had an important influence on his life. it is clear just listening to the man that community organizing had an enormous influence on his life, whether or not he did it well, that is another story. that does not really matter, it still will teach you something. when did you meet him, and how old were you? i was a brash young man of about 22 years of age, something like that. i met him because i had tried to start, or had started, an organization in chicago of porter ricans and some other spanish-speaking people who were being kicked around in a rundown neighborhood in chicago. so i started this organization, which very shortly went way over my head and i really did not know what i was doing. i was just feeling my way, and of course it was costing a lot of money, which i did not have. so