Me & Adlai
When I was ten years old, I gave Adlai Stevenson a ride in an elevator at the Majestic Hotel in Belgrade, Yugoslavia. My parents had told me he was in town, and staying at the same hotel where my family was camping out until the embassy came up with a house for us to move into. They assured me Stevenson was a Great Man, which was why he got his picture on the cover of LIFE magazine.
This was exciting stuff, and there wasn’t a whole lot else to do in Belgrade, so I decided to meet him – ambush him, really – and hopefully astonish him by speaking to him in his own language. And just to make sure he knew I was an American, just like him, I chose to outfit myself in jeans, cowboy boots and hat, and a pair of six-shooters.
For most of a day I hung around the hotel lobby, waiting for him to make an appearance. Finally, in the late afternoon, he pushed through the magnificent front door and headed straight for the elevator, just as I had anticipated. It was one of those old-fashioned elevators where you have to push a lever to make it move and stop at the right floor, and I could drive it flawlessly. I bounded into the cage ahead of him, and said, “What floor please, sir.”
And Adlai Stevenson said, “Three.”
Then he stared straight ahead.
It wasn’t quite what I’d expected. I guess I’d thought he’d be surprised – and even pleased – to find a little American cowboy in a hotel in Belgrade. Certainly I’d anticipated he’d ask me a question – my name, maybe, or what I was doing in Yugoslavia instead of cleaning up the streets of Tombstone. I was even prepared to mention that he should have been elected President, if the subject came up.
But it didn’t.
I started driving the elevator. To erase any doubt that I was American, I said, in what I imagined was a drawl, “What is your name, sir?”
And he said, “Adlai Stevenson.”
And that was the extent of our dialogue.
We got to the third floor. I slowed the elevator smoothly, stopped it precisely, and pulled back the metal screen like I’d been doing it all my life. Adlai Stevenson, hero of my parents and friend of the common man, walked out without another word or a backward glance and disappeared down the hall.
It was my first experience of being disappointed by Democrats.
This was exciting stuff, and there wasn’t a whole lot else to do in Belgrade, so I decided to meet him – ambush him, really – and hopefully astonish him by speaking to him in his own language. And just to make sure he knew I was an American, just like him, I chose to outfit myself in jeans, cowboy boots and hat, and a pair of six-shooters.
For most of a day I hung around the hotel lobby, waiting for him to make an appearance. Finally, in the late afternoon, he pushed through the magnificent front door and headed straight for the elevator, just as I had anticipated. It was one of those old-fashioned elevators where you have to push a lever to make it move and stop at the right floor, and I could drive it flawlessly. I bounded into the cage ahead of him, and said, “What floor please, sir.”
And Adlai Stevenson said, “Three.”
Then he stared straight ahead.
It wasn’t quite what I’d expected. I guess I’d thought he’d be surprised – and even pleased – to find a little American cowboy in a hotel in Belgrade. Certainly I’d anticipated he’d ask me a question – my name, maybe, or what I was doing in Yugoslavia instead of cleaning up the streets of Tombstone. I was even prepared to mention that he should have been elected President, if the subject came up.
But it didn’t.
I started driving the elevator. To erase any doubt that I was American, I said, in what I imagined was a drawl, “What is your name, sir?”
And he said, “Adlai Stevenson.”
And that was the extent of our dialogue.
We got to the third floor. I slowed the elevator smoothly, stopped it precisely, and pulled back the metal screen like I’d been doing it all my life. Adlai Stevenson, hero of my parents and friend of the common man, walked out without another word or a backward glance and disappeared down the hall.
It was my first experience of being disappointed by Democrats.
posted by patrickhenry at 4:15 PM
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