Bill Clinton was running late.
And the crowd was getting antsy.
It was a steamy, humid Friday night in July 1992.
I was standing outside a union hall in Coatesville, waiting for a caravan that would bring Bill Clinton, who had won the Democratic nomination for president the night before, for the first appearance in a weeklong bus caravan.
It was my wife's idea. I had phoned her the night before from the office and told her of the candidate's plans for the bus tour, and his stop in Coatesville. It was the city where we met, having both worked at the local newspaper, The Record. She was in advertising; I was in news.
She was a big Clinton fan. I asked her if she wanted to see him Friday night. So we scooped up the kids - who were not nearly as enthusiastic about the possibility of meeting someone who might be president as their parents were - and drove into The Ville. The bribe of a promise of a trip to Dairy Queen later on sealed the deal.
When we got there a fair number of people already were gathered outside the steelworkers union hall in the city's West End.
We all stood outside in the stifling heat.
And waited.
And waited.
We had been there at least an hour after Clinton's expected arrival time. The kids were getting antsy. People started grumbling. Some left.
I was considering doing the same when a man emerged from the union hall to calm the crowd.
His name was Harris Wofford.
In a blue Oxford shirt, with the sleeves rolled up, and khaki pants, Wofford went to work easing the crowd. He talked to people about why they were there, and what Clinton might mean to the country.
He knew what he was talking about.
Harris Wofford was a longtime civil rights activist who marched with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in the South. As an aide to President John F. Kennedy, he helped Sargent Shriver establish the Peace Corps.
He was an educator, serving as president of Bryn Mawr College.
In 1991, he was serving as Gov. Robert Casey Sr.'s secretary of labor and industry when the governor tapped him to fill the U.S. Senate seat created by the tragic death of Sen. John Heinz in a helicopter crash. He upset former Gov. Dick Thornburgh in the special election to fill the seat, but he lost in his bid for a full term to Republican Rick Santorum.
But on this hot July night, he was trying to keep the peace, working the crowd.
Just as we were about to leave, I heard a booming voice from a nearby police radio.
"We're on Lincoln Highway."
The next thing I knew several of the biggest, black SUVs I had ever seen careened around the corner. The doors flung open and out stepped the young, smiling governor of Arkansas.
I got to shake Bill Clinton's hand that night, and that of another future Democratic nominee, his wife, Hillary Clinton.
It's the only time in my life I've shaken the hand of someone who would be president.
And I have no doubt it would not have happened without Harris Wofford.
Wofford died this week. He was 92.
He lived a great life, one that emphasized public service.
To me, none more so than the service he fulfilled on a hot July night in 1992.
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