There I was

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One of the really cool things about my old job was that every now and again, the President of the United States would come to Utah.  Once, I got to shake hands with George Herbert Walker Bush; another time, he gave me and my friend Ed a thumbs up.

We were standing on a corner, having a cigarette, with an armed security policeman standing across the street from us, by the way, as the presidential motorcade made its way to the flight line.  The leader of the free world leaned forward, looked out the window, and gave me and my friend a thumbs-up!  I'm sure it was the uniform, but still, I thought it was cool then.

I still do.

Mr. Bush is in the hospital and not doing well.  I thought it would be a nice day to share that little story with you because it's not every day you get to meet the President.  I passed up on a chance to meet President Clinton; mostly because I was pissed off that I had to leave home for two weeks because Saddam was acting up.  I met Wendi on that trip, and that would wind up changing my life in so many ways that I couldn't see back then.  My wife at the time (and no, nothing happened between Wendi and I on that trip!) took her mom to see Mr. Clinton and we'd just arrived back home that particular day and I wanted to go home.  In hindsight, Mr. Clinton is one President I wish I'd had a chance to meet.

I saw Mr. Bush the junior as well once but didn't crowd the lines to shake his hand.  I wasn't a fan then, nor am I now.  I did get to shake hands with the Secretary of Defense one day.  He was walking past a group of us that were fixing his airplane and I looked at him like "Well, what about us?"  He'd just taken some photos of some hand picked pretty people in their blue uniforms.  We were in fatigues, fixing his airplane as he was headed to a different airplane.  He thought about it for a sec, then with a "what the hell, I have time" look on his face, he came over and shook hands with us and chatted with us for just a minute.

Thank you, Mr. Secretary was my parting word to him for coming over.  It's not ever day you meet the guys in the top part of the chain.  A general traveling with the Secretary gave each of us a SecDef coin to thank us for our efforts.

Another cool thing in the career.

I hope you'll take a minute and offer a prayer for the senior Mr. Bush.


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