I was just about to turn 11 when George H.W. Bush came to my hometown of Westbrook, Maine campaigning for re-election as Reagan’s Vice President. I was wearing a sign around my neck made by cutting a rectangle out of a manila folder. Written on it in ball-point pen was the word “REPORTER”. One word, but five times: once big in the middle, and once at an angle in each corner. With me were three other sixth graders, with their own badge designs.

He stopped his car because he saw our badges. Or someone did. Who knows? The badges were big enough and stupid enough, and he stopped his car. He got out and started giving us some pens and pins. He wasn’t really playing up our claimed credentials though. No interview was playfully offered. No jokes about who we worked for. Swipes at the media wouldn’t play like they do today, I’d say. Or maybe he just wasn’t that good with kids. His son certainly supports that hypothesis.

One by one, the other kids took what was offered and said thanks, or nothing at all. I was last. I don’t remember if I said thanks for what I got. I remember thinking that if I didn’t ask one of the questions we had written, he might just say “easiest interview I’ve ever done” and hop back in the limo.

Here’s the background on the index card that I pulled out and read from, without looking up. In case you don’t remember the time: Bush was doing all the stumping for this campaign. Reagan was taking it easy. Well, why not? Were they in any danger of losing? But I had my question.

“Mr. Vice President, how do you respond to those who are saying that you are doing the bulk of the campaigning because President Reagan is too old?”

To his credit, he gave a decent enough answer that I don’t remember exactly what it was. Failure is always more memorable. He said that wasn’t the case at all, of course. The Iran-Contra scandal would of course find Reagan himself implying that it might have been. Though we’re seeing that “not recalling” seems to afflict politicians at earlier and earlier ages nowadays.

The next day, I was on the front page of the American Journal, the very, very local paper of small town Westbrook. But the day after that, it was old news. Still, I wish I had saved that paper. Man, if I’m wishing, I wish I had it on YouTube. I do wonder, though, what would my poor dad would have had to go through in this day and age if this had happened today and it ended up on YouTube. I wonder what it would be like to see a picture of your son with a Hitler mustache drawn on.