Life Across America 1996

Dear Family and Friends,

Today is the big day, today is the day that my rehab dream comes true totally! Over ten years ago I had a dream/vision that someone day I would ride across America with Aaron on a bicycle and watch him shake hands with the President of the United States. Today is that day. I got up early today and starting preparing for today’s meeting, and whatever else the FOP drums up for us at the NW gate.

We have our meeting scheduled for 10:03 a.m. and we have to be at the gate by 9:30 a.m. to meet Krista, the special assistant to the President who will escort us in to the radio show WTOP 1500 am. When we are done we will then pack us and head westbound to Bowling Green, Kentucky and to Nashville, Tenn. on Monday.

Well today at approx. 9 am Ken S. met us in front of the Hyatt Regency and went with us up to the NW gate of the White House in a cab (station wagon) to fit all eight of us in. We then met Sgt. Tom Ferris of the Uniformed Secret Service at the NW gate and he gave me a Fraternal Order of Police shirt to give to the President and a membership card as an honorary member of the Grand Lodge of FOP to give to him. I stopped and took a picture with him and the card and the shirt. The secret service men on the gate allowed Gail and the children and Ken to enter the grounds with us and go on into the West Wing with us to wait on Aaron and I. We were there about 9:30am and then we met up with Krista and she explained what we were going to do, that the President would be doing a 4-6 minute radio broadcast and we would be sitting in the Oval Office with him and watching him do this. Then afterwards, we would be each ushered up to him in front of the desk and the White House photographer would take a picture of us with him. Then we would be able to present any gifts and talk with him and shake his hand. They told Gail and the children they would have to wait in the press room while we were in the Oval Office, that way they would be able to hear the President’s broadcast and then meet up with us when we came out.



They continued to usher people into the Oval Office and Krista came back to talk to us and check on us occasionally, she asked me if it was hard for me to stand for a long period of time and I said “yes”, so she then made arrangements for Aaron and I to sit on the Presidential couch, by saving us a space when we came in. Aaron and I were the last ones to come in and Krista had to “guide us” through the 40+ people who were already in the Oval Office standing around the Presidential Seal oval rug on the floor. We were seated on the couch right at the right front of the room, facing the left front corner of the President’s desk. There were TV cameras in the middle of the room, surrounded by people standing and sitting. There was a black lady who was the White House photographer who was crawling around on the rug in front of us, taking pictures of the President while he was making his broadcast.

He spoke for about 4-5 minutes on the prevention of pesticides in our Children’s food and how we must always take care to always have a safe food supply in the United States and how we must always take care of provide good food for our children. After his broadcast he stood up and then moved to the front of the desk and started receiving families to greet them and listen to what they had to say and then pose for a picture with them. While we were waiting our turn, Krista tapped me on the shoulder and asked if I would like to have my family with me for the picture... I said “yes” and she said to continue to wait and let others go ahead of us and she would go get the family from the press room. A few minutes later she returned with Gail, Katrina, Amy, Adella, Amber, and Ken S. and we all walked up to the President and “I hung back and let Aaron go first so that I could watch him shake hands with President Clinton”, after that happened, then I walked up and presented President Clinton a copy of the LAA map and a membership card of the Grand Lodge of the Fraternal Order of Police with his name inscribed on it. I then said to him, “on behalf of all the police officers in the United States and the member of the Fraternal Order of Police, and the blood donors and blood centers across the U.S. who have supported us we would like to present you with this card and an honorary membership in the Fraternal Order of Police, and I would like to thank you for allowing my dream of watching Aaron shake hands with the President come true... thank you for that very much sir!” President Clinton looked down at the membership card and then looked at the Life Across America map and bio, and in a second came a moment of recognition and then looked me right in the eye as he shook my hand and said, “I really admire what you are doing for the American people... keep up the good work!”

With that, we all crowded around the President and in fact he was instrumental in asking each one of the children their names and shaking hands with each of them, and then he directed Adella and Amber to stand in front of him for the White House photograph. (The shirts and jerseys were left in the outer office per the request of his personal secretary who told us that because they was so little room and it was so crowded it would be better to leave them out there so we did) Then Krista led us back there and we wrote on another LAA map who each shirt was for and Krista promised to talk to President Clinton and tell him who the gifts were for and why. Krista also promised to send each of us an autographed copy of the pictures and said it would probably be about a month before we got our copy. Krista really went out of her way to help us while we were there. She seemed genuinely concerned about police officers and our blood cause and thought it was great to have Aaron come with me on the ride. She said that President Clinton loves kids and really goes out of his way to make them feel at home in the White House. On the way out of the west wing we ran into Scott the AP photographer who took all of our photos at the finish at the Capitol and ARC blood drive. We stopped and took some more photos and then we grabbed a cab and went back to the Hyatt and walked across the street for breakfast at the Holiday Inn.