The Candidate and the coed

Summer 1992
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

I was in college and had a free afternoon. While chatting with my pal, librarian, Kate Anthony, we heard on the radio that presidential candidate, Bill Clinton was in town. He was staying at the Warwick Hotel and was going to step out and do a little handshaking in the neighborhood. I made sure there was pen and paper in my Jansport backpack, waved good-bye to Kate, hopped on my shiny new Schwinnn cruiser (bike #3) and pedaled over to 17th and Locust to check it out.

Man, it was a gorgeous day in Philadelphia, low humidity, temperature somewhere in the 70's. I recall thinking it was a fine, fine day to go shake a man's hand. I went and parked between Little Pete's diner and the Eric Seagal bronze of the man hailing a cab. Locust Street between 17th and Rittenhouse square was closed. On one side of the street the sidewalk was lined with sawhorse type police barricades. Across the street was the blank side wall of the hotel that had a windowless metal door. I joined the people behind the barricade and started the wait.

It was a fairly typical crowd, not a lot of yuppies. So as I stood there the crowd kept getting thicker and no one told us this, but we all knew, we had to stand on the sidewalk behind the barricades. Everytime a door opens and someone other than a cop walked on to the street the crowd stretched then groaned. One of the these people I recall was a really hot dude who looked like he could have been a young Clinton, wearing madras plaid shorts and a polo shirt. But he was just some sort of aid or waiter or donor. The crowd kept growing. You couldn't see any more sidewalk, just a wall of people. Folks are now standing on all sides of me.

After waiting for nearly half an hour, we can see a clot of people across the street. It was Bill Clinton surrounded by the people who surround candidates. He started working the crowd down at the far end of the block. The crowd was starting to close in, pressing me, stepping on my feet and crushing my shoulders. I had little trouble being assertive. These senior citizens were no match for my mosh pit skills. Using my elbows to keep these ugly people out of my face, I managed to barely keep my place at the edge of the barricade. The crowd for Shonen Knife was uglier but better dressed.

So I'm elbowing the cretins on either side of me to keep from being crushed. So excited, so excited, bopping up and down, clutching my pencil and paper, I keep looking to the right. Then I see the shoulders of his entourage. Then I see him, so much taller, younger and cuter than on TV. He's grasping hands and smiling. His head bobs up and down back and forth trying to see each and every dirty one of us standing there gawking at him. Oh boy, here he comes, here he comes. I thrust out my pencil and paper and blurt out my brilliant line (which I'd been working on for a while). "I'm from South Carolina, and its great to see another southern democrat on the rise".

He takes the pencil and paper and makes eye contact with me. Me, with my mass of auburn hair and collegiate charm. Me, the girl with the 18 hour figure, the poor kid who graduated at the top of her class in Horry County South Carolina. Me, who years later would look back at that eye contact in a very different way.

"If you're from South Carolina what are you doing way up here?" He passes the pencil and paper back to me, shakes another person's hand and keeps looking at me, still making eye contact. "I'm going to college"

He smiles, nods."Make good grades" he says and moves up into the crowd. Swallowed in a wave of elbows, khaki and sandals. I start to back away from the barricade and a few people in the crowd look at me and my autograph with envy. I stuff it in my backpack and ride away home. Filled with joy and hope and pride I rode my bike home.

After this incident I became very interested in the campaign but missed the debate between Bush, Clinton and Perot. The day of the debate I was on the hydrofoil crossing the English channel chatting with an Irishman named Michael who lived in The Netherlands for political reasons. He really liked this story and he correctly predicted Clinton would win the election, he said no one would vote for Perot because Americans hate rich people.