A Memorable Journey
I’ll do a wrap-up post on my time at WWDC, but I felt that I had to write about this first. On the way back to Vancouver from San Francisco, I had scheduled a shuttle, but at the last minute, canceled and decided to use BART again. It was one of those decisions that I’ll no doubt look back on and think, it’s a good thing, because otherwise I wouldn’t have had the experience that I had. Friday the 13th has always been lucky for me, and this June 13th was no exception.
After boarding the train at Civic Center, after 2 or 3 stops, 2 men in suits got on the train. I couldn’t believe my eyes. Navy blue suit, blue eyes and gray hair, a US Flag lapel… it was Howard Dean. Yes that Howard Dean, the former Governor of Vermont, front-runner candidate for President in 2004 (whose campaign I worked on) and currently, the Chairman of the Democratic National Committee. ‘I’m never going to have another chance like this,’ I said to myself. In a moment or two, I got up the nerve and introduced myself to him, telling him that I had worked on his campaign (He immediately said ‘Thank you’ for that) and that I was a great admirer of his. He was on his way to some meetings at hotels at the airport, and to avoid the traffic, had decided to take BART. I told him where we had moved (and why). He had many questions about Vancouver; he hadn’t visited the city for 40 years. He did mention, that he loved Canada, and often went to a family house in Nova Scotia, near Bras d’Or Lake (since Vermont is so close to the Canadian border). Pam and I had gone to that area for our honeymoon. He talked about how cosmopolitan a reputation that Vancouver has, and that he could absolutely understand our move here. He asked if we were going to get Canadian citizenship, and that obviously, being a techie, I would have had no problem getting landed immigrant status. We chatted about a number of subjects: the Primary, What President Barack Obama will do to help put the country back on the right track (and whether we’d return after that), even a bit about our land in Vermont (“You should hang on to that”, Dean said. “When we get out of this Real Estate slump, that’s going to be worth some serious money.”). We reminisced a bit about when I had last seen him on the campaign, in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, when he spoke by the river, with boats with his banners floating back and forth behind him. When I commented on the flag pin on his lapel, he said that it was “to show the Republicans that they don’t own the flag”. He laughed when I suggested that perhaps the Democrats could have a slightly different (and maybe a more elegant) design for it.
To prove that this is not what it sounds like, a ‘tall tale’, I got his assistant to take a picture of the two of us, seated on the BART seat:
We parted as he went off to his meeting, and I headed to my check-in for the flight home, feeling as if I were in the air already. At the gate, I immediately called family all over North America to tell them of my good fortune and began this post.
My lasting impression of Dean is pretty much how I imagined him one-on-one. He seemed interested and charming, intelligent, a good listener and a smart businessman. He was very gracious, and seemed genuinely interested and engaged. In short, I was not disappointed.
I suspect that the average person has a shot at meeting and talking to, perhaps 1 or 2 famous people in their lifetime. You hope that those celebrities are people that you’d also like to meet and perhaps even someone who you admire. I’ve actually had more than my share of meetings with famous people in my life so far. I’ve met and even had some conversations with several composers, including Olivier Messiaen, Aaron Copland, Virgil Thompson, Ned Rorem, Elliott Carter, Steve Reich and Leonard Bernstein, playwright Edward Albee, the writers Isaac Asimov and William Gibson, and some brief moments where I shared a transit ride with Michael Dukakis and William Weld (It’s odd how I always meet the politicians when riding on mass transit) I’ve even met some luminaries in software and business, including John Sculley (the first CEO of Apple Computer while Steve Jobs was in exile) and Bill Atkinson, one of the more interesting figures in the history of computers (he invented 2 early pieces of software for the Mac, which became the first of 2 categories of software, MacPaint, which begot bitmap editors and HyperCard, which it may be argued, was a precursor to the World-wide Web and has been said to be the inspiration behind the concept of the Wiki). As Nearly-Canadians (and as I’ve noted in previous posts in this blog), Pam and I even shared a picnic table with actress Nancy Robertson (who plays Wanda on “Corner Gas”) and briefly met Roch Carrier, the author of The Hockey Sweater, a classic story, animated film and keystone of Canadian identity.
Nevertheless, it was great to finally be able to tell Howard Dean how much I had looked up to him. On June 13, 2008, without any warning, I got a chance to talk to one of my personal heroes, and I’m thrilled.
19 Comments to “A Memorable Journey”
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West End Bob
Posted: Jun 15th, 2008 at 6:16 am1Very nice saga, David. Glad you were able to tell Dr. Dean about your move to Canada and why — Very good!
Remind me to hang around you on the next Friday the 13th .…
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Bethany
Posted: Jun 15th, 2008 at 5:11 pm2That’s So cool! I’m so glad you spoke with him. And even further luck, what a really great photo, you both look great!
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John Bollwitt
Posted: Jun 15th, 2008 at 7:37 pm3Wicked awesome! Even better, he was taking public transit. Very cool.
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David Drucker
Posted: Jun 15th, 2008 at 7:55 pm4Thanks all. Yes, when I commented on the fact that it was nice to see him taking public transit, Dean mentioned that he knew and had taken rides on the transit systems in several cities (and started listing them — no ‘Yee-ha!’ at the end of the list, tho
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nancy
Posted: Jun 15th, 2008 at 9:13 pm5David — I’m so glad you had that experience. You of all people deserve to have those kinds of moments. Thanks for sharing it all in your blog!
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John Biehler
Posted: Jun 16th, 2008 at 8:51 am6Wow…what a great way to end WWDC week!
I’ve taken the Bart to the Airport in the past and found it to be a much better alternative than making my friend drive all the way out there from his place in Mountain View.
The fact that you bumped into Howard Dean makes it all that more cool!
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Warren Frey
Posted: Jun 16th, 2008 at 3:54 pm7Awesome! That’s so damned cool.…
btw after I saw Gore endorsed Obama today I tried to donate $50 to the campaign, only to find that as a Canadian I can’t do so. Boo hiss! I want a non-crazy person in the White House as much as any American!
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David Drucker
Posted: Jun 16th, 2008 at 8:33 pm8I’m happy to ‘money-launder’ any Canadian contributions to the Obama campaign.
BTW, today I made the hilarious Freudian slip of referring to that sausage maker with a booth on Granville Island as ‘Obama’ Sausage.
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Arjun Singh
Posted: Jun 17th, 2008 at 5:21 pm9Frankly, I’m a bit jealous David. On another note, Howard Dean looks like he’s got a bit of makeup on, maybe he did some tv interviews that day. Almost a wax facsimile. Just my first impression.
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Jonathon Narvey
Posted: Jun 18th, 2008 at 4:53 pm10I noticed you sort of skipped over the answer to the question of whether you’d move back to the land of the free if Obama could put the USA back on track. You would be missed — but then, I suppose you already are, from the other direction. Complicated stuff.
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David Drucker
Posted: Jun 18th, 2008 at 10:16 pm11Arjun — He probably looks more waxy in the photo than he was in real life, as far as I can tell. It may be just the lighting in the subway car.
Jonathon — We actually did touch on it, and I told him of our worry about the deficit, and how we were concerned that no matter who was in power, the problems would be felt in tough times for Americans our age in about 20 years or so (when I’d hoped to be able to retire). To Dean’s credit, he didn’t try to make me feel guilty for having abandoned the country, nor did he say that we should come back; only that Canada was a fine country, and that he could certainly understand our attraction to the place. It’s nice to know that we are/would be missed in either direction, and I guess that comes with the territory. That said, I have met so many good people here, and had so many positive experiences that I could imagine being just as heartsick returning to Boston as it was to leave. Perhaps even more.
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Rob Cottingham
Posted: Jun 19th, 2008 at 12:59 am12I loved this story. Thanks for sharing it, David. And give Howard my best next time you’re on BART.
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Sooz
Posted: Jun 19th, 2008 at 12:32 pm13Just saw this photo over on Flickr and thought I’d say hi.
Very cool! Brings back a lot of memories of all those weekends canvassing in New Hampshire! Michael and I spent the eve of my 30th birthday in an airport hanger at 3am with a couple hundred people waiting for Dean to return from Iowa (his “yell” trip) …
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David Drucker
Posted: Jun 19th, 2008 at 1:04 pm14Thanks, Rob. I’ll be sure to do that…
Sooz! I had no idea you were there the morning after the scream. Good to hear from you (although I sort of feel in touch a little through Twitter).
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Jamie
Posted: Jun 19th, 2008 at 5:26 pm15That’s fantastic!
What an amazing story; I’m glad your trip down to SF for WWDC ended with a bang.
Great catching up with you too! Say hi to Pam for me.
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David Drucker
Posted: Jun 19th, 2008 at 9:15 pm16Hi Jamie,
Yes, it was just a few days after I saw you that I got to meet Dr. Dean. Too bad you weren’t with me, especially since it’s probably a part of the BART line that you ride all of the time (Beginner’s Luck, I guess).
It was great to catch up with you. Hope it won’t be too long before I’m in town again.
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Melissa
Posted: Jun 23rd, 2008 at 3:07 am17Very cool, indeed. We still have our Dean bumper sticker on the car! Your story is right up there with my meeting Dennis Kucinich at the Cleveland airport as we were waiting to board. He was headed to Vancouver to a conference to introduce his Department of Peace plan. But you got a photo!!
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Stephen Rees
Posted: Jul 2nd, 2008 at 9:55 am18My celebrity on a train story is more embarrassing. I was a student at the time and a bit well known as I chaired some significant Union meetings. So when I got into conversation with a tall, fair haired man on a train to Nottingham, I assumed he knew me from them. He seemed familiar but I could not place him. Then he got off at Leicester — so that shot my theory. A long while later I realised I had been talking to Monty Python star Graham Chapman — and for years worried I would be lampooned in a sketch as ‘the bore in the buffet car’. I wasn’t — and he was a very pleasant travelling companion. And it has never stopped me from talking to complete strangers, something that the English are supposed not to do.
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David Drucker
Posted: Jul 2nd, 2008 at 10:11 am19Hi Stephen,
How do you know that perhaps he didn’t use a piece of the conversation in a sketch that didn’t take place on a train? Hope not, but if nothing else, it might be a challenge to look at some of those Monty Python programs (which I still see rebroadcast on US PBS these days). Who knows, you could always say “See that bit where the guy says ‘Bet she does, bet she does…’? That was my bit!”
