So a Clint walks into a bar . . .

TV host Mike Rowe was sitting at a bar the other night.  When the man beside him asked for "a Clint," his ears perked up.  What in the world was a Clint?

The bartender asked the same thing, and the man reached into his pocket and handed the man a business card.  After reading it, the bartender said, "One Clint, coming up!"

His curiosity now totally aroused, Mike turned to the man and asked, "What in the world is a Clint?"

The man handed him his card and said, "Keep it.  It might come in handy sometime."

On that card is a specific recipe for a very specific drink.  The recipe, for the curious, is two shots Campari, one shot vodka, one slice of orange, and soda water, in a tall glass with ice.  

"Are you the Clint for whom the drink is named?"  Mike asked.

He was. 

"And have you also grown weary of describing a drink no one has ever heard of?"

He was.

They fell into conversation, the type of conversation that men often have when sitting at bar over drinks. Mike learned that Clint had spent his career in law enforcement.

Specifically, he'd been in the Secret Service.

Whoa. 

"Did you ever know a guy named John Barletta?"  Mike asked.  Mike was lucky enough to have met Barletta, a former Secret Service agent on Ronald Reagan's detail. 

Clint knew John Barletta many years ago, describing him as a "good man." 

"Did you read his book, Riding With Reagan?"  Mike asked.

"I sure did," Clint answered.  "He was absolutely devoted to the Reagans."  

Clint, by now, had received his "Clint," and he and Mike drank a toast to the memory of John Barletta, who'd died recently. 

Had Clint ever been involved with Reagan, Mike asked.

"No," Clint explained. The last president he'd guarded was President Ford. 

Before that, he'd been on President Nixon's detail.

And President Johnson.  

And President Nixon. 

In fact, he'd started with Dwight Eisenhower.

"You must have some stories," Mike said.  

Clint did. And does. 

He's written a few books, and one of them is about a woman you may have heard of.  

Does the name Jackie Kennedy ring a bell?

Clint's last name is Hill.  This is the man who, on November 22, 1963, rode on a running board on a car behind a limousine that usually had a bubble top on it . . . but because the weather had cleared up, and it was a fine, sunny day, with temperatures in the low sixties, the decision was made to leave the bubble top off.  

An hour later, after a final, fateful, zigzag turn past a six-story building, Clint Hill heard, bang.

Instantly, he thought, danger.

He was off the running board.

He doesn't remember the second bang because he was focused on getting to his protectee.

The third bang sounded three-quarters of a second before he climbed onto the back of the limousine.  

Jackie Kennedy grabbed his hand. She pulled him up while he pushed her down.

He is the one that saw the gruesome injury to President Kennedy.

He is the one who turned and gave a "thumbs down" signal to the agents behind him.

He is the one who clung to the back of the limousine, protecting Jackie Kennedy with his body, while the limousine raced down the Stemmons Freeway towards Parkland Hospital at speeds up to 80, maybe 90 miles an hour. 

He is the one who said, "He's dead," as they arrived at Parkland.  

He is the one who offered his suit jacket to cover President Kennedy's head, because he knew that Jackie didn't want her husband's head exposed like that.

And he is the one who made the phone call asking for a casket, who said, "This is the President of the United States. Give me the best casket you've got."

He was there for all of it.  

He's written his story in Mrs. Kennedy and Me, Five Days in November, and Five Presidents.

He's carried the guilt for years, telling himself, if I'd just been faster, I could have taken that bullet and JFK would still be alive.  

Only recently has he come to realize that, in his words, the shooter had all the advantages that day.  The Secret Service had none.

This is a man that deserves to have a drink named after him, and deserves to have every bartender in the world make it for him. 

Right after Mike Rowe posted his encounter with Clint Hill, Clint's book, Five Presidents, knocked Andrew McCabe's book The Threat off the #1 spot of Amazon's best-seller list.  

We need heroes in this day and age.  And we need to be reminded of who those heroes are.  The ones who will throw themselves over the back of a car, who are willing to take a bullet for someone.  Or even those who sit at a bar and engage a stranger in conversation, a stranger who might need that listening ear.

I'm going to swipe Mike Rowe's ending words to his Facebook post.

Carry on, Clint.

Carry on.

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.

German chocolate and the end of innocence

When Roz Fishburn learned that someone wanted a recipe for a layer cake made with German chocolate, she picked up her phone and dialed 527-4188.

By the time the other party answered the phone, she was out of breath . . . but not because she'd raced to the phone in order to make her phone call.

Between the time Roz Fishburn made her phone call and the time her party finally answered, she'd heard the following words:  "President Kennedy is reported to have been wounded by an assassin in Dallas, Texas.  There are no further details at this time."

The number 527-4188 that Roz Fishburn dialed belonged to radio station WTIC in Hartford, Connecticut; and the show she was trying to contact was "Mikeline."  This website, dedicated to Hartford, CT radio history, describes "Mikeline" as "WTIC's 'neighbors-over-the-backyard-fence' call-in program".  For a half-hour, between 1:30 p.m. and 2:00 p.m., people around the state of Connecticut (and some outside of the state) could call either 527-4188 or ask their operator for the number Enterprise-9842.  On the air, callers asked for recipes, cleaning tips, or other household-related questions; other callers would call in and say, I know where you can find such-and-such.  

On the day Roz Fishburn made her phone call--November 22, 1963--announcers Floyd Richards and Bob Ellsworth manned the studio, taking phone calls from people asking about such things as the game of mumblety-peg, how to clean a tent before you put it in storage, and where to get directions for an Italian knitting machine.  The very first phone call answers a question about "how do I keep my garbage cans clean?" with a suggestion about "these new plastic liners".  (We now take plastic trash bags for granted.)

"Mikeline" began at 1:30 p.m. Eastern Standard Time.  In Dallas, Texas, it was 12:30 Central Standard Time.  At the moment Floyd Richards was greeting his listening audience, President Kennedy's motorcade was making its final turns through downtown Dallas, heading for the Dallas Trade Mart, where Kennedy was due to have lunch and make a speech. 

I've watched/listened to the JFK assassination TV and radio coverage posted on YouTube, and more than any other, this video shows just how ordinary that day was before those three shots that changed history forever.  No other video also shows the horrifying contrast between the chit-chat on the radio and the reality happening in Dallas that no one knew about yet.

The person who posted the video goes by the YouTube handle "Bertelevision".  Over the audio of "Mikeline"'s November 22, 1963 broadcast, he's superimposed pictures of what people were calling in about (for example, a picture of a garbage can shows up during the audio of the woman explaining about the new plastic liners). 

What he's also done is, in captions, post a minute-by-minute account of what was happening in Dallas at the exact same time "Mikeline" was being broadcast.  In fact, while the woman was talking about plastic liners for the garbage cans, the shots were fired at Kennedy's car, hitting JFK and Governor John Connelly.

Approximately 10 minutes into the broadcast, a woman calls in with a request for a layer cake made with German chocolate.  This was the recipe request Roz Fishman heard.  At the same time she was heading for her telephone, Jack Bell, an AP correspondent, finally got his hands on a receiver of his own and filed his account of JFK's shooting.  Unfortunately, Merriman Smith of UPI had already beaten him to the punch by grabbing the phone in the press bus and refusing to let anyone else have it.

At 1:55, after Floyd Richards listened to the question, "When is the best time to trim young maple trees?" Bob Ellsworth broke in with, "Floyd, I have something rather important from the WTIC newsroom in the form of a bulletin."  

He then read the announcement about JFK being wounded.

Floyd Richards and Bob Ellsworth, both blindsided, decided to take the next phone call, from the now-breathless Roz Fishman.  She said that the announcement just "took my breath away."

As she began to give the recipe, Bob Ellsworth interrupted with a second bulletin--announcing that President Kennedy and Governor John Connelly had been "cut down by an assassin's bullets".  

Bob Ellsworth, after saying that "this changes the complexion of many things", said that "we'll continue along." 

Floyd Richards said to Roz, you're in the middle of a terrible thing here; perhaps it's best to keep on going as best we can and for us to give the news as best we can.

Her response:  "I don't feel like it."

The sympathetic Floyd Richards told her, "that's fine.  Give us a call when you can."

By that time, the major networks were either on the air or getting ready to go on the air.  Within moments of Roz Fishman's hanging up, WTIC switched over to the NBC Radio feed, much to the relief of Richards and Ellsworth.

The period from November 22 to November 25, 1963, is often called the death of American innocence.  One can argue whether American innocence really died that day or if it had ever existed in the first place.

But when you listen to the WTIC broadcast of "Mikeline" with its questions about recipes and household hints, and read the captions showing the parallel events in Dallas, it brings home how the world, in less than half an hour, was totally transformed.  

I don't know if Roz Fishman ever called back with her recipe.  Perhaps, by the time the events of that awful weekend in 1963 were over, the world had just changed too much.  

German chocolate cake just doesn't seem that important when three shots in six seconds ended innocence.

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.