Bill Clinton and I
Bill Clinton was the convocation speaker for the class of 2004 graduation, so I went with some friends to see his speech. We got there around 5:20 AM, and (through others’ goodwill) managed to get reserved seats for our group! So, we were five rows from Mr. Ex-President, who gave a 30-40 minute speech extolling the virtues of Cornell, and calling for world unity. What he said was fairly general, vague, and seemed off the top of his head, but his charisma and delivery were impressive.
Afterwards, he made a walk along a pre-prepared path shaking hands. Tiffany shook his hand (twice), while I settled on snapping the picture you see below, and saying hi. The crowd was tremendous–thousands, and everyone was pressing up against that fence–some 20 or 30 feet deep in people squished all together. Now I understand how people can get trampled to death in large sporting events!! Anyway, it was quite interesting! And the Secret Servicemen were very sharp looking.
The following pictures were all taken during the press walk, with my motorola v400 cell phone camera:
