In exactly three hours, President Obama will be hosting a town hall meeting on healthcare reform. The town is the small Montana town I now live in. He’s here; he’s here; he’s here seems to be the refrain echoing in this valley. Last night at a dinner party, a friend told about how the preparation for the event had touched him. Working on a job up at the ski mountain, he heard a deep rumbling in the sky and waited for it to approach. He looked up as dark green helicopters skimmed towards him along the tops of lodge pole pine trees. Both helicopters were emblazoned with “United States of America” in blue. This man, a gentle horse-loving man, waved. One of the uniformed men in the helicopter waved back. “They were checking it out,” he explained, making sure no ill-doers were hanging in the woods nearby the mysterious lodge slated for the President and his family. I smiled at the visual. I also sighed with the relief of a common person. I am not the President or a famous person who, by sheer role, needs hundreds of people (and thousands of dollars) to scour a place before I go ahead and land.
But it did remind me of the time I met President Bush in my brother’s hospital room. No one patted me down. No one looked inside my purse. Perhaps, without my knowing, they did a background check on my name. The only physical check was a haunting one. A secret service man shook my hand and said, “You are about to meet the President. You will address him as Mr. President.” As the standard words slipped from his mouth, he burrowed his eyes into mine. It was a mental strip down. Any lie I’ve ever told rose to the surface. He knew everything. Did he catch my profound irritation and near hate for the important man I was about to meet? Uh oh. He could see, though, that this young woman had no desire to tackle Mr. President. Secret service people are trained to read the intricate movements of eyes, to look for something suspicious. Imagine if we all knew how to read the landscape and intention of each other’s eyes. Is it an animal instinct we once had? What a powerful and terrifying tool.
Tags: Obama, secret service
Brilliant, Ma’am. To find otherwise-hidden lands written on our faces; how do they teach that skill? The secret service does a good job of projecting frightful competence, but I wonder how much soul-reading they can really pull off.
I seriously think the secret service learn about eye twitches and which one means what. Maybe not soul reading, but surely intentions reading. We all have that radar… those moments when someone’s tiniest gesture or flash of the eyes signals that it’s time for you to bolt, or at least be wary. I read once that human communication is more than 70% body language. That talking stuff we all do is icing on the cake.
I like the helicopter part much better than the scanning eyes part… What relief to have this amazing man as our President. I can’t get over it and I love that. Great writing, as usual, Moll.
That story about the secret service agent has stuck with me since you first told it to us Crooshers over pizza three years ago. A skill like that is stunning, frightening, and also inspiring. I would love to feel like my perceptive skills were that honed.