The Day Of The Jacka**

Ah, I remember it well. It was the day I was mistaken for a terrorist.

Tom Karst's recent blog about being admonished for taking photos on the Pentagon grounds triggered the memory of my excursion, probably in the early 90's, to Washington, DC for what was then called the United Fresh Fruit & Vegetable Association Conference of Committees.

I remember flying over from Chicago to DC with Joe Comito from Capital City Fruit, Norwalk, IA, and through his ample cache of miles he finagled to score me a first-class seat with his. Marrone! I put my feet up, had free cocktails if I wanted (no, I didn't--ordering an Absolut/tonic at ten in the morning might give my client the wrong idea, but the fact was I could have!), real napkins, two courses with entree choices, I was styling to say the least.

After arriving at Dulles & doing some sightseeing at the Smithsonian (whataplace!), I left Joe & checked into my hotel, after making plans to meet the next morning at the Hart Senate Office Building. At that time, Joe's son Brendan was the scheduler for Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA), and the upshot from that was that we were going to have a private audience with him. Harkin's not the Pope, but I was pumped nonetheless.

Next morning I suited up, donned my new sunglasses & cabbed it over to the Hart Building, and stood in the lobby waiting. And I waited. Ten, fifteen minutes. I started to get a little anxious, thinking I had maybe misheard the time of the appointment, and remember cell phones weren't as prevalent then, mostly because they were the size & weight of a brick. Thus, I couldn't call Joe either.

So now I'm close to neurotic, and I was fidgeting, looking at my watch repeatedly. And I'm in this lobby, with its marble facade & gleaming floors, all by myself...but not for long. From both sides I sensed movement, and then silently & totally in sync two large security guards reached me simultaneously. They both stood very close, stone-faced, not touching me, and I've turned into a statue by now, not breathing, like an idiot mannequin wearing a suit. Then one of them said in a very low voice, "Are you armed?"

I immediately relaxed & said no, I'm just a businessman waiting for a client to go up to Sen. Harkin's office. The tension broken, the guard phoned upstairs & that's when I realized that we had, indeed, gotten our signals crossed & I missed the meeting. And just like that, my brush with fame was gone like two ships passing in the night.

But can you imagine how this experience would have been different had it happened after 9/11? No way would I have even gotten in the building, or if I had, with my nervousness I'd have been flung to the floor and chloroformed into unconsciousness, my last brain waves registering 'this isn't so bad...'

Later,

Jay