Secret Service

I always try to use the most appropriate photos available

My personal experience with the Secret Service took place in October of 1984, when the boss and I were attending Missouri Auction School. During our stay in Kansas City Ronald Reagan debated George Mondale in the Kansas City Municipal Auditorium right across the street from our hotel.

Other than seeing the motorcade, the whole affair was not amusing for residents of what was then, I believe, the Kansas City Best Western. We were told to stay out of our rooms while they were searched by the Secret Service. We rode on elevators with the Secret Service. Often.

Students at auction school were a sorta sarcastic bunch. However, the Secret Service did not find our jokes in said elevator amusing. Nothing funny about a bunch of cowboys, realtors, and farmers from NY I guess. They surely did not smile.

Some of them spent the evening before the debate in the bar of the hotel where students gathered to gripe and practice chants at one another, grimly overseeing us potential threats, and making everyone uncomfortable..... although not too uncomfortable to practice Betty Botter over and over again.

Or maybe they were trying to blend in. If so they failed utterly, as gigantic guys with necks so thick they could barely button their collars kind of stood out among the cowboy hats and girly dresses of our classmates. 

Plus none of them were chanting, "One dollar bid and now two, now two," which was a dead giveaway.

On the day of the debate we were forced to stay out of our rooms for many hours, and we couldn't have our car....we got pretty bored walking around that section of KC. It was a little dangerous too. We were followed by a gang of youth that political correctness forbids me from describing, but I'll bet you can picture them. The boss scared them off with his best mean glare.

Always

The Secret Service guys were scarier. In the end though, it was just another story to tell about what were probably the strangest two weeks of my life.....one dollar bid, and now two, now two......