LETTERS FROM HOME: CAPE WOMAN DENIES PRESIDENTIAL SMOOCH

Sept. 5, 1996

Dear Pat,

People say the president of the United States kissed my mom but it's not true. She told me so. There was a brief cheek-to-cheek hug and then her head ended up against his chest, but there was a good reason. She told me that, too.

The president was here for a campaign stop. DC and I went to see him, waited in a good-natured line longer and slower than any I've ever been in before. Thousands of people passing through metal detectors.

We saw Clinton's jet fly overhead toward the airport and knew he'd get to the rally before we would.

A 4-year-old boy named Jacob and his mom were next to us in line. DC asked her if Jacob really knew what he was there for. Oh yes, she said, he's the one who wanted to come see the president. Jacob held up a copy of the newspaper, smiled and pointed to Bill Clinton's picture.

"This is Bill Clinton," he said. "He's the president of the United States. He's from Hope."

Jacob knows history when he sees it.

So does my mom. She saw Clinton here and then drove ahead to his next stop, Cairo, Ill., where she was among the first to arrive. She had a good reason, of course. My father and father-in-law both play in a Dixieland band that performed at the rallies.

She was with the band.

Mom staked out a spot that looked like prime viewing real estate. But she had to fight for it. You know that feeling. You've arrived early for a concert and then all the late arrivals start crowding in, encroaching on your space until it's body-to-body, Ultimate Fighting Championships. One woman elbowed in from the left, hoping this short lady would give way. No way.

The payoff came when Clinton walked down the line shaking hands. He shook hers, did the little huggy cheeky but no kissy thing, then reached over her short self to shake some more hands. That's when her head and his chest connected.

Somehow, a few people who witnessed this pressing of the flesh have turned it into a kiss. "That's how rumors get started," mom says.

There you have it. Bill Clinton, victim of other people's fantasies.

One of the young women DC works with drove to Paducah, Ky., the Clinton-Gore caravan's stop after Cairo, and took a room at the motel where the Secret Service agents were staying. Seems impervious young men in suits and shades are her fantasy. Came back with lots of pictures of men in sunglasses, none of them Clinton.

DC and I spied a Secret Service agent standing in the middle of a Subway shop about a block from the rally. Same shades, same short hair, same suit. Just stood in the middle of the room, stonily looking out at the street. Tight security, we whispered.

Then the friend he was waiting for came out of the bathroom in his cutoff shorts and T-shirt and they walked out toward the rally with the rest of us.

After all the speaking was done and most of the crowd had left, I meandered toward the press section and watched the CNN correspondent mess up eight takes of "Blah, blah, blah, this is Wolf Blitzer in Cape Girardeau, Mo."

Then the 14 Clinton-Gore buses finally left. They were all with the band, doing the Macarena into November.

Love, Sam

~Sam Blackwell is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.