The President in Boone

This afternoon I walk out of the little restaurant on the main street of Boone after lunch and walked straight into a swarm of black and gold town police, gray state troopers, and lots of intense young men in black suits, dark glasses, and no ties (a concession to local custom). Then I noticed that the street was empty of traffic and a crowd was gathering. Coming down the street was a convoy of police cars and two big busess and lots of big white vans.

The big black bus stopped in the middle of the street and with a great hubbub someone went into the Mast General Store to buy candy. It was Barack Obama. After about 5 minutes he came out, walked down a line of very carefully frisked, wanded, and otherwise selected 'crowd' members and ducked into Our Daily Bread restaurant. After another 5 or 10 minutes he got back on the bus.

In the crowd I had been able to see mostly his forehead. It is quite broad. Once he was on the bus the bus started down the street right past us and we could see Obama standing up in the front of the bus waving to people. The bus was headed to the Watauga High School and then down the mountain to Wilkes where he had a scheduled stop at the local high school. The stop in Boone had been entirely unannounced.

It was fun. It was a gorgeous fall day, perfect temperature, and the crowd was in a good mood. They just wanted to see the president.