A damp meeting between a bus boy and a future President

George H. W. Bush, the 41^st President of the United States, died three weeks ago at the age of 94, the longest living President in U.S. history.

President Bush 41 had a remarkable career as a public servant, going from U.S. Congressman to Ambassador to the United Nations to the chairman of the Republican Party to the Director of the CIA to Vice President and eventually becoming the President of the United States in 1989, succeeding Ronald Reagan, the man he served under as Vice President.

Long before he was ever elected to public office, George H.W. Bush served as a Lieutenant in the United States Navy and fought for this country in World War II, serving as a fighter pilot, conducting 58 assorted air raids with hundreds of successful hits on enemy planes. Once, his plane was shot down in the Pacific Ocean and he spent hours floating on an inflatable raft, wondering whether he would ever be rescued. He eventually received several awards for his military service, including the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Presidential Unit Citation.

When you collect all the pieces of Bush 41’s service to this country, he just might have the most storied and distinguished career of any U.S. President.

And he just might be the only U.S. President to ever have had a pitcher of water spilled on him. Well, he wasn’t the President yet, just the Vice President. 

But it remains the story of how the future President of the United States got doused with a pitcher of water -- by none other than yours truly.

You see, it was the summer of 1981. Bush 41 was just sworn in as the Vice President earlier that year, on the same day that Reagan became the 40^th President of the United States.

At that time, I was a student at Marquette University, but during the summer break, I had a job that I loved, serving as a bus boy at the Stadium Club in Giants Stadium, working for the Harry M. Stevens Corporation.

I initially got the job as a bus boy in 1979 because I had a host of friends who worked as bus boys at the Pegasus Restaurant at the Meadowlands Racetrack. I was all set to join my buddies as a bus boy at the track. The paperwork was taken care of. I was interviewed by the hierarchy. They liked me and hired me. However, there was only one problem. They didn’t have a uniform jacket big enough to fit me.

I was just about ready to be sent out the door with no job, when someone mentioned that they needed bus boys at the Stadium Club. I was asked if I would be willing to work there instead of the track.

As it turned out, it was probably a blessing, because if I stayed at the track, the compulsive gambler and harness racing diehard in me would have plunked all my earnings on the No. 6 horse in the fifth race on a nightly basis.

Instead, I got shipped over to the Stadium Club, where I couldn’t do any damage. Or so I thought.

Eventually, I became comfortable at the Stadium Club. I was well liked by the waitresses, the kitchen staff, the maitre d, the entire organization. I was a hard worker and moved up the ranks, eventually becoming the supervisor of bus boys and porters.

I even knew the most important words to work as a supervisor of bus boys and porters, which were “limpios platos,” meaning clean dishes in Spanish, and “sucios platos,” which of course meant dirty dishes.

I worked all the big events at Giants Stadium, especially at the time, soccer games. The New York Cosmos were the biggest draw at Giants Stadium back then, so I worked all the Cosmos games. People who went to the Cosmos games wanted to eat and drink before and after, so they came to the Stadium Club, where we would have thousands of patrons before and after each match.

Sometimes, the players would come in, so I got to take care of superstars like Pele, Giorgio Chinaglia, Franz Beckenbauer, Ricky Davis, Carlos Alberto and the coach, Prof. Julio Mazzei, who was instrumental in bringing Pele to the Cosmos and who led the Cosmos to the North American Soccer League championship in what was dubbed “The Soccer Bowl” in 1982.

The Professor loved me to no end and greeted me after every game with a huge hug. He was a wonderful man and I enjoyed seeing him at the Stadium Club all the time.

So I was a fixture at the Stadium Club for a long time, even after my disastrous association with the future President of the United States in July, 1981.

There was a huge political fundraising dinner held at the Stadium Club for the Republican Party of New Jersey and for Tom Kean, the Republican candidate for Governor. Kean eventually won the election in November of 1981, defeating Jim Florio in the closest gubernatorial election in New Jersey history. Kean won by less than 2,000 votes.

People paid hundreds of dollars per ticket for a chance to hear the Vice President and former U.S. President Gerald Ford speak. Kean and Ford were close friends, especially since Kean once served as the campaign chairman in New Jersey when Ford ran for President unsuccessfully in 1976.

So here was this big fundraiser with all the major political people on hand. I was a 20-year-old college student, of course already having Democratic ties, being a Hague from Jersey City.

Like I had a choice in that matter. My father was a popular Democratic committeeman in Jersey City for over 30 years and was instrumental in helping to bring John F. Kennedy to make a campaign stop in Jersey City in the fall of 1960, before Kennedy defeated Richard Nixon. There were the Democratic ties by being a Hague from Jersey City and long-time Jersey City Mayor Frank Hague, a distant relative.

Prior to this huge fundraising dinner, I was screened by the Secret Service, asking me questions about whether I had any problems with either former President Ford or Vice President Bush. I replied that I did not and just wanted to my job to the best of my ability, like every time I put on the blue jacket to lead my bus boys and porters. When I worked at the Stadium Club, I had no favorite teams or political affiliations. I was more concerned with sucios platos and limpios platos and whether or not water was poured in every glass at the tables prior to the customers’ arrival.

Since I was the head honcho of the bus boy patrol, I was the one who took care of the head dais and poured all the water and cleared away all the dirty dishes. I had three years experience prior to this dinner and I never had a single incident.

But lo and behold, disaster reared its ugly head on this fateful July evening.

As Vice President Bush went to take his seat at the head dais, the bus boy in charge proceeded to pour water all over his lap.

And when I say all over, I mean all over. It was probably close to 24 ounces of water that ended up in the future President of the United States’ lap, all on his suit pants and even got some on his suit jacket.

Right away, the Secret Service whisked me away and brought me to the bowels of the stadium, away from the dinner. I never got the opportunity to offer my apologies for my disaster. I wanted to meet the man, perhaps shake his hand. After all, this was royalty at this head dais, the former President, the future President and the future Governor all within a few seats of each other.

And I screwed it all up by not paying attention to what I was doing and dousing the Vice President with a pitcher of water. It was an embarrassing disaster.

The Secret Service asked me if I did it on purpose and if I had any political motivation to throw water on the Vice President. I honestly did not. I just wanted to do my job.

For more than 200 events working for Harry M. Stevens, I did my job and obviously did it well. I eventually moved on to become a security person/bodyguard at the Brendan Byrne Arena for concerts. 

I worked for people like John Denver, Kenny Rogers, Styx and REO Speedwagon. I drove John Denver over to the Meadowlands Racetrack in 1982 to watch the harness racing in the pouring rain before his concert on Saturday night. We stood together and watched a few races and no one noticed that it was him.

So I did my job well during my days at the Stadium Club. Except for that one fateful evening when I inadvertently dumped a pitcher of water on Vice President George H.W. Bush, who was more than gracious after getting doused.

In fact, Bush sought me out after I was taken away quickly by the Secret Service. Luckily, Bush was given another suit that he changed into. He wanted to talk to me and let me know that he understood it was an accident. He asked me what I did most of the time. I told him I went to Marquette and his response was, “Oh, that’s a good school. Don’t worry about this, young man. We all make mistakes.”

I didn’t give much thought to that evening until George H.W. Bush finally passed away three weeks ago. I watched most of the funeral proceedings on television and heard the eulogies, especially the one delivered by his son, the 43^rd President. I then realized what a remarkable life he had, how much service he gave to this country. And how wet I made the man that night – and he didn’t hold it against me.

The college basketball season is only a few weeks old and there’s a lot that can be said about the current No. 1 team in the land, the Duke Blue Devils, with their much heralded freshman class of R.J. Barrett, Tre Jones, Cam Reddish and of course, the freakishly talented Zion Williamson, who is already earning rock star status and drawing big crowds wherever he plays.

No question, Duke is extremely talented. The Blue Devils have more talent than any college basketball team in recent history. Probably the only team that draws any comparison would be the 1990 Running Rebels of UNLV.

But there’s something about this Duke team that I don’t like. I can’t put my finger on it and maybe I’m wrong.

They play out of control most of the time. They are not running any sort of offense. It’s all transition, up and down the floor, firing up the first 3-pointer they see. They are playing AAU-style basketball. Will it work? Sure, for most of the season, it probably will. It will make crowds explode in excitement.

But the basketball purist in me thinks that Coach Mike Krzyzewski might have lost control of this team and is letting the inmates run the asylum. It just appears that way. If the Blue Devils run one half-court offensive set any time soon, then maybe I’ll change my mind. It’s also hard to argue with success, when you’re the No. 1 team in the land.

However, there have been a lot of No. 1 teams that have fallen by the wayside en route to the NCAA Championship, including the aforementioned Running Rebels, who lost in the NCAA semifinals that year to – oh yeah – Duke and All-American players Christian Laettner, Grant Hill and fellow Jersey City-ite Bobby Hurley.

Maybe, just maybe, this Duke team will prove me wrong. But the jury is still out, despite the team’s early success.

I will state one thing: Zion Williamson is the most all-around talented creature I’ve seen in college basketball since Anthony Davis was a freshman at Kentucky. Before that, it was when Shaquille O’Neal was a freshman at LSU.

Williamson is scary good and does everything. I’ve never seen anyone of his size (6-foot-7 and 285 pounds) who can handle the ball, run the floor, block shots, rebound and shoot like him. And that includes the newest member of the Los Angeles Lakers, namely LeBron James. We all know that LeBron never played college ball. I think Williamson does more at this age than LeBron did.

We have to see what happens with this Duke team. There’s just something missing there.

You can read more of my work on www.theobserver.com and www.hudsonreporter.com. Both publications will soon have the Top 10 Stories of the Year for each circulation area. Both year-end stories are interesting and fun reads. Check them out.