VICE

on the way down to spend Indigenous Peoples Day (2007) in Maryland at a colleague's fishing cabin, my brood demanded a stop for lunch at the little historic town of Easton. Rumsfeld and Cheney have homes right down the road. As we walked back to our car i noticed a crowd of black Suburbans lined up in front of a Ye Olde Gun Shoppe we were passing and realized that there was a formation of self-consciously casual, ear-plugged and not so secret service men staked out in watchful formation along both sides of the street. Most were wearing brand new hunting outfits: kakhi vests, sportsman slacks. Assassins, Eddie Bauer Edition.

So hennie, in a watermelon print sun dress and flip flops, and i, duck into the shoppe, The door swings open right into the cash register and i'm standing face to scowl with "the President's Helper"*.

He was standing tense and awkwardly at the counter, waiting while his order of shotgun shells and weapon swag was rung up. More of the secret service were positioned thruout the tiny room of a store.

*this was hennie's coinage, after I tried to explain the office to her