Twenty-five years ago, I crashed a dinner party for Hillary Clinton. It was a small gathering of maybe a dozen people on the North Shore of Kauai. She would not remember me. I do not count the experience among one of my Most Memorable Life Moments. But it was a nice party and she was friendly and fun and Chelsea, who was 12 at the time, was amazing.
So here’s what happened.
The time stamp on the photo says 8/26/91, but that’s not correct. The photo was taken with an actual camera in the days before digital photography and cellphone photos, and nobody knew how to correct the date on those things. In any case, it was the summer of 1992, and Bill Clinton was the Democratic nominee for the office of president.
Hillary Rodham Clinton, who was using her middle name as part of her official signature at the time, was on Kauai with her daughter for a few days of rest during the campaign. The two were staying at a modest house in Hanalei near the beach. Secret Service agents and campaign staff were there, but it was clear that this was downtime for them.
My former in-laws were involved in the Kauai Democratic Party and so were invited to a casual dinner with the wife and daughter of the party’s presidential candidate. They told me to come along – Why not? Kauai style, what’s one more? I think we even brought poke and beer like it was a regular local party.
When we got there, my then-mother-in-law, while struggling to park on the small lawn, bumped one of the Secret Service agents’ cars. No big deal, she was told. You can’t see any ding and besides, it’s a rental.
I had been working in journalism for just a few years, but long enough to have interviewed a fair number of politicians. I knew that no one involved in a campaign ever asks you a question.
They always take control of the situation and monologue for as long as they can hold your attention. I was not covering the dinner as a reporter, nor was I prepared to have an actual conversation with the guests of honor. I figured I’d just listen.
Clinton went around the room and had everyone introduce themselves. She had that memory trick that allows her to put names to faces almost instantly, but more than that, she remembered details about everyone’s backstory and kept coming back to things people had said. She made sure everyone in the room was included in the conversation.
My brother-in-law brought fresh opihi, and bless her heart, Chelsea tried one and was very careful to hold her expression still while she ate it so as not to offend. She didn’t pretend she liked it but she didn’t say it was awful, either.
She instead launched into a buoyant story about running up the stairs to the top of the Statue of Liberty with her friend and then collapsing in a fit of exhaustion and giggles, which freaked out the Secret Service agents, who wanted to call emergency medical personnel until the girls assured them that they were fine.
It was a story you don’t often hear from a child that age — she was neither the hero nor the victim of the tale. She wasn’t bragging or complaining. She wasn’t using the story to describe a bigger truth about her life or her father’s campaign. It was just a cute story from a girl who had an unusual childhood, but an authentic childhood all the same.
In the photo I have of that night, I’m wearing a terrible brown-print dress that’s kind of short. Clinton is wearing a terrible tropical-print dress that’s kind of long. She was 44, I was 25. I’m sure we’d both make different choices now about myriad things. I also suspect there are core things about people that don’t change over time.
So here’s the part of the essay where the writer ties in the anecdote with the larger argument they’re trying to make, and in our current state of affairs, that would mean I should make a point about Clinton’s ability to connect with average people, her amazing dedication to listening and really hearing others’ stories, and how I would not have felt safe wearing that dress to a Donald Trump party.
But maybe not every story has to be mined for a deeper meaning. Maybe this one should just be as it is, and I’m like the old lady sitting on the porch recalling an incident from long ago without judgment or analysis. I had dinner with Hillary Clinton. It was nice. She was friendly. End of story.
Reach Lee Cataluna at 529-4315 or lcataluna@staradvertiser.com.
