an evening with the gov

Our friend, Sandy, is the head of the Campaign for Equal Justice, and Karen made a nice donation last year. So, we got invited to the annual 'Thank You, big Donors' reception, at the Governor's residence in Salem.

There was an armed guard outside the gates with a clipboard, to screen out the riff-raff. Amazingly enough, we passed. We walked in, and tiptoed around the corner, heading for the goodies, when we ran right into the Governor, who turned to greet us.

We actually spent several minutes chatting about Karen's work, my work, upstate New York (he had been to the Adirondacks), and Enron - he was charming, relaxed (drinking a beer), and seemed pleased to have opened the mansion to such a distinguished crowd (everyone other than us, that is).

I had my camera in my pocket, just in case, and Karen had the nerve to ask if a photo would be OK. He went to put down the beer - we said, "it's OK" and he said "my staff would never forgive me." Here 'tis:


Everyone was gathered around the hors d'oervres table, and the living room was empty. Karen asked the Gov if he would like me to play the piano, and he smiled and led me into the living room, to an amazing Steinway. I sat down to play, Karen brought me a glass of wine, and the crowd moved into the room. I played for about an hour, and it was great fun. Plus, I didn't have to make conversation with a bunch of seriously-connected bigwigs!

As we were getting ready to leave, a distinguished gent came up to me, and asked "haven't we met before?" and introduced himself. I gently replied that he was most likely mistaken.

We don't go to these types of functions very often.