To the editor:
As the world pays its respect at the passing of the 41st president of the U.S., I recalled an incident the evening before commencement at Albion College (MI) in 1989. An Albion graduate was one of nominee George H.W. Bush’s poll experts. The Albion graduate had requested that candidate Bush make a speech at the pollster’s alma mater, and his good friend accepted.
I was director of development at Albion, curious about the preparation for the visit by the president. A friend who was the chief of maintenance convinced the Secret Service team to allow me inside the ropes to observe the process. A comment whispered to me by my friend was ominous. There was a bookish looking fellow in a gray tailored suit with a hearing device in one ear carrying an aluminum case about the size of an overstuffed briefcase. “If that guy begins to open that thing he’s carrying,” warned my friend, “hit the ground. He’s got an Uzi in there.”
It was late afternoon when the Secret Service did their very thorough sweep of the campus. They searched every building with bomb-sniffing dogs, and then locked the doors behind them. No one was allowed to enter an inspected building until President Bush finished his speech and was on his way back to Washington, D.C., the next day.
Like many small private colleges founded in the 1800s, the campus grounds were contained within a long, grassy, natural plain, surrounded on both ends and each side by classroom and administrative buildings. To heat the buildings on campus, a large boiler system pumped heat through a series of conduits that spread outward beneath the grounds. Those tubes had not been used for many years.
Proud parents, friends and the robed senior class were seated in folding chairs. The platform for the commencement speaker and other dignitaries of the college administration was constructed over the steps leading into the gymnasium.
After the Secret Service accomplished their mission, a few were relaxing, chatting with our maintenance folks, including a student who worked for his tuition. The student casually remarked, “It was really fun playing in the heating ducts when we were freshmen.”
Suddenly, every member of the Secret Service personnel froze! The maintenance chief was ordered to find the plat of the campus showing where the now-abandoned underground tubes were. A bomb placed near the speaker’s platform could reshape history. Finally, after an almost hysterical inspection of the underground conduits, the “all clear” was given. The unnerved Secret Service guys calmed down, at least until the arrival of Mr. Bush the following day.
Jim Brunnemer, Brown County
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