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:
This entry was posted on Friday, May 21st, 2004 at 9:01 am and is tagged with motorola v400 cell phone, motorola v400, world unity, cell phone camera, motorola v400 cell, minute speech, shaking hands, convocation, charisma, virtues, bill clinton, sporting events, cornell, fence, goodwill, tiffany, graduation, crowd, motorola. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback.
on June 2nd, 2005 at 12:55 pm
I attended President Clinton’s commencement speech at UC San Diego in 1997 where he announced the creation of the national conversation on race relations. Alas not much came out of that group. I only got within 50 rows (~200 feet) from the stage, and the only sharp Secret Service I saw were the sharpshooters on top of the gym.
on January 25th, 2006 at 6:46 am
I never got a chance to hear Bill in person; however I am a fan of his verbal delivery and presentation skills. If you took some pictures of the secret service men, I wonder if they would have questioned or approached you? Most definitely if you were a 5′8 brunette.