Thursday, April 07, 2016

Sweetheart of the Secret Service, or Bernie Sanders comes to (my place of) work

Bernie Sanders (Photos for Detectives Beyond Borders
by Peter Rozovsky)
Bernie Sanders came to Philadelphia today, including a stop at my newspaper for a chat with the editorial board and some reporters. 

We civilians got close enough for handshakes and, if one had a long enough lens, for good photos.  We were kept from getting too close to the glass-walled room where Sanders spoke by a woman I'd suspect must be the lowest-key and most genial agent in the Secret Service. 

"Where is the senator going next?" I asked.

"Need-to-know basis," she replied, but she smiled when she said it. "They only told me I was coming here this morning."

Granted, this was not the most dangerous situation in which a presidential candidate is likely to find himself. Still, the wide-shouldered, black-suited,  ultra-tense Secret Service man with a earphone stuck in his ear is such a reliable pop culture joke that the easy atmosphere surprised me. Even the black suits, the ones who stayed alert at all times and kept their eyes on the elevators and only occasionally wandered into the photos I was trying to line up seemed to be turned to 5 or 6, tops, on the tension meter.  So, props to the Secret Service for doing its job well.
=====================
Unlike Barack Obama eight years ago, Sanders did not walk through the newsroom. I was off  the day Obama dropped in, but everyone who was there reported that Obama joked about being shocked by the age of our computers, by one account giving the publisher a friendly chuck on the arm as he did so. And maybe that's why we kept Sanders away from our computers.

© Peter Rozovsky 2016

Labels: ,

2 Comments:

Blogger seana graham said...

Nice work. Good thing they didn't seat him behind that plant.

April 07, 2016  
Blogger Peter Rozovsky said...

If I moved a bit to either side, I could get the plant out of his mouth. In other shots, it adds a bit of evocative scenery. (I put up an album of photos from the visit on Facebook, and maybe I'll add a few more here.)

April 07, 2016  

Post a Comment

<< Home