Dubya Comes To Town

May 2001

"So kids. What do you want to do today?"
I asked the question whilst hiding behind the morning newspaper, waiting expectantly for my breakfast egg. It was Memorial Day, the tail end of a long weekend. Maydee was up preparing breakfast and unfortunately she had already ruled out a day of hoped for lethargy composed mostly of molding my spine to the contours of the sofa.
"I have some things to do today and the three of you will find something entertaining to do," she had said prior to the commencement of breaking yolk. "Moreover, whatever you do will entail a modicum of intellectual interest. This precludes lunching at a McDonalds with a play area," she had added, as though reading my mind.
"Yes dear. Whatever you say."
"I want to watch TV," said Victoria in response to my query.
"Yeah," said Christopher clutching the remote excitedly. "The Land Before Time movie is on Toon Disney today. All the Land Before Time movies are on. It's a marathon." He pointed the remote at the idiot box, his index finger itching to push the power button.
Oh don't. Please don't. I thought to myself. You'll start World War III.
"No TV!" said Maydee calmly, but firmly. Simultaneously she slid an egg from the frying pan onto my plate and grabbed the remote from Christopher. "You are not watching TV and especially not those stupid cartoon characters. On top of everything else that I dislike about them, even their English is bad."
"Besides," said I, devouring a bit of egg and waving my fork about in reluctant agreement, "We already live in the Land Before Time. It's 300 degrees outside and the lizards in the garden are becoming larger and more carnivorous with each passing day. You can watch them instead. I think we should go to the dinosaur museum and learn about real dinosaurs."
"We've been there," said Christopher, completely unenthused with the idea.
"Yeah. They have a lungfish that scares me when it opens it's mouth," said Victoria.
"A lungfish? I thought the dinosaur museum had bones and other mildly fascinating bits of prehistoric detritus, not live animals."
"A lungfish is a living dinosaur, Daddy," said Christopher assuming the role of junior paeleontologist. "It's there as an example of evolution and it's boring."
"And scary," said Victoria, assuming the role of frightened child.
"Alright, alright. We'll find something else to do." Then a headline caught my eye. "Hmmm. What's this?" I jabbed at the newspaper with the fork. "Do you guys really want to watch a stupid cartoon character that can barely speak English?"
"Yeah! Woohoo!" cried C & V in a rare chorus of unanimity. Usually they squabble incessantly over everything, including which Disney channel to watch.
"What did I just say?" asked Maydee brandishing the frying pan menacingly. "No TV. None!" She placed the remote in The Very High Place in the cupboards. I watched, surreptitiously committing the spot to memory, there being many Very High Places in the cupboards, along with the other remote control hiding spot called many Dark Places Under the Furniture.
" Did I say TV? I did not. In fact, I believe what I have in mind includes the prerequisites of being entertaining, yet intellectually stimulating at the same time. Well, sort of anyway. A stupid cartoon character who barely speaks English is coming to town today to make a Memorial Day Speech, in two hours and not two miles from our front door. This is perfect."
"Who or what is it?" asked Maydee suspiciously. She still held the frying pan.
"The President of the United States."
Maydee had absolutely no interest in seeing George Dubya Bush, but she did point out that the President's route from Williams Field Airport to the Champlin Fighter Aircraft Museum was not being released to the public. The newspaper article said as much. The President was in town only for three or four hours before leaving for L.A. to participate in the rolling blackouts there and as security was bound to be tight - even for such a short visit - presumably the fewer people that knew of the route, the better.
"So if you don't know how he's getting to the Museum, how are you going to see him?" she asked. "If you don't know the route, he could be anywhere. Sounds like a waste of time to me."
"Well I don't think this is a waste of time. When was the last time you were ever within egg throwing distance of a President of the United States? How will we find his route? Elementary my dearly beloved. Time to sport our thinking caps. By good fortune, Dubya is arriving in close proximity to the Malcolm Compound here in Gilbert. And because we live here, we already know the lie of the land. The airport, being small, has only one entrance and one exit. Therefore we know exactly where Dubya will be at some point today between 12:00 and 12:30. Unfortunately, security is bound to be tightest at bottlenecks such as that and the presence of foreign nationals such as ourselves parked on the side of the road waving Canadian flags and books on English prose would likely warrant us unwanted attention."
"So how will you see him then? What if he takes a helicopter from Williams Field to the Museum?"
"Easy. He won' t take a helicopter. If he had intended to, the newspaper would have mentioned it. It wouldn't have said the route was not being released to the public. These things are always planned well in advance right down to the last welded manhole cover. Once he leaves Williams Field, the shortest route to the Museum is up Power Road, one measly mile away. Trust me, there will be a motorcade and that motorcade will follow the path of least resistance and take the shortest distance between two points. Human nature dictates it. So do security concerns. We'll park off Power Road and wait. Need anything returned to the Book Depository while we're there?"

A short time later C & V and I parked under a shade tree in a parking lot off Power Road. We had stopped first at McDonalds to investigate a new play area, bought some burgers and then sallied forth following battalions of police cars, motorcycles and trucks tossing out barricades at every intersection. Security was tight, but also plainly and obviously outlining the President's route.
Helicopters darted about overhead and passersby took notice of the activity. A few people had gathered at the side of the road, most having just discovered the nature of the event. But not all. "What's up?" enquired a large woman dressed in flowing purple tent robes. She was accompanied by two equally massive grandchildren with scowls on their faces. They took up most of the shade under the tree, but also provided a great deal of their own.
I debated telling her there was a sale on foodstuffs at Wal-Mart, but decided against it. She was bigger than me. "The President's here today. He'll be along in a few minutes."
"Rully? Cool! Hear that kids? The Pres is comin' in a few? Which way, ya know?"
"I would imagine it matters very little if he travels north or south along the thoroughfare, given that he'll pass by within sixty feet of here whichever way he comes. However, as he arrived at Williams Field, he will be travelling in a northerly direction. From that direction to this." I pointed to clarify.
She digested this for a moment. "I wus a senior in high school when they shot JFK. We got the day off as I remember. Guess there ain't no grassy knoll here is there?"
I wasn't sure what to make of this. The use of the pronoun 'they' seemed to indicate she believed more than one person was responsible for JFK's demise than simply Oswald alone. Had she misspoken her pronouns or was she a conspiracy theorist? The grassy knoll? Why didn't she say Book Depository? Official reports of the JFK assassination state unequivocally that the shot came from the Book Depository. Conspiracy theorists believe shots were fired from the Grassy Knoll. Was the most memorable part about that awful day in 1963 the fact she got a day off from school? Unanswerable questions. Without a shred of any real evidence I decided she was a conspiracy theorist and tried to regain the natural shade of the tree.
"Actually there is a Grassy Knoll. See the roadside slope of the 9th hole of the golf course on the opposite side of the street about a quarter mile down?"
"Omigawd! So there is! C'mon kids, let's go." She waddled off toward Gilbert's Grassy Golf Knoll, purple robes flapping in the breeze. Her behemoth grandchildren eyed Victoria's hamburger with more than casual interest as they departed and I kept my daughter in close proximity much as a seal would its young when faced with a pair of hungry sharks. It seemed the woman hoped there would be a repetition of Dallas, but why she wanted to be close to the action in the unlikely event there was baffled me. Anyway, the President was that much safer with those three mastodons blocking the view.
And so we waited. And waited. And waited. Nothing. The police presence grew thicker though and I noticed a motorcycle cop speaking with the manager of a nearby Albertson's grocery store, who had come outside to see what all the hubbub was about. After a while the cop crossed to the other side of the street and bellowed through a bullhorn: "Y'all cain't be on this sahd o' the road. Y'all're gonna hafta cross the road." Then he cruised through the parking lot on his motorcycle clearing the rabble in what I initially believed to be an effort in crowd control. Problem was, there wasn't much of a crowd.
When we crossed the road, what was probably the real reason for the containment of several dozen Presidential sight-seers became evident. As few people had realized the President was coming by until they saw the police activity and made enquiries like the purple Ms. Barney, no one had brought American flags to wave. In a show of patriotism however, the manager of the nearby Albertson's had rushed out with a cart full of flags and was doling them out on the side of the street to which we had been removed. Oops. No that was wrong. In a show of capitalist greed, however, the manager of the nearby Albertson's had rushed out with a cart full of flags and was selling them on the side of the street to which we had been removed. At twice the price they usually sell for. What a piece of unexpected good fortune!
I refused the offer of a flag which was cause for several dirty looks from those who presumed I was unpatriotic scum. So I pointed out in loud remonstrations that Albertson's was ripping everyone off. This set off a stampede to the flag cart demanding refunds. So much for patriotism.
So much for the squeeze the cop on the other side of the street was going to get for increased flag sales owing to his efforts on crowd control. By this time, the other side of the street had filled up again, but now the cop was on this side of the street talking to the grocery store manager. He made no effort to return.
In the distance, numerous headlights suddenly appeared. I gazed through a pair of binoculars and saw the advance guard of the motorcade. Far more quickly than anyone expected, numerous police motorcycles roared past exceeding the speed limit by a wide margin. A helicopter raced overhead and then a black limousine could be seen preceded by a white Ford Bronco. (O.J.?) and more motorcycles. The motorcade kept a steady, though rapid pace and the President cruised by smiling a cheesy wooden grin and waving to all and sundry. It appeared he was a sleeping automaton. Next came a wicked looking black Ford van bristling with antennae. Had anyone even whispered the word bang, that person would have been done for. And then a tow truck and an ambulance. A wayward motorcycle cop and the show was over.
"Is the President important?" asked Christopher when we climbed back into our car.
"Well, yeah, he is," I replied. "Why do you ask?"
"He had a limo," said Christopher. I think the kids would have been more thrilled with a repeat visit to the lungfish.
On the other hand, when the kids are 90 years old, they can always look back and say "My Dad took us to see the President who won by three votes and a hanging chad. We could have stayed home all day searching for the remote control instead."