Blake got his first real writing gig back in the '90s, in a column called In Real Life , a title so broad it allowed musings on golf, cherry red pickups, Decoration Day, and the various travails of the small businessman as well as forays into farm policy, energy policy, and the overreaching authority wielded by the Endangered Species Act. One consequence of this dream job was a beautifully engraved invitation on embossed cardstock requesting our presence at the Frances Boyer Lecture at the Washington Hilton on December 6, 1995.AEI
We were thrilled. Sure, it was on our dime, but the honoree that year was George Will, one of our heroes and besides...reception! Dinner! Dancing! What did we have to lose?? It would be a grand outing, a splurge, a tiny little peek through a crack in the fence by us hoi polloi into the rarefied world of punditry and think tanks.
We sent our RSVP; I bought a dress at Dillard's and called the men's shop in Shenandoah to reserve a tux for Blake. We hurried back home from the Missouri Farm Bureau annual meeting and I rushed up to pick up the tux first thing the next morning. We traveled light: just a suitbag and carryon with our fancy clothes and something to wear home..one night at the Washington Hilton and the air ticket was as much money as we were willing to swallow for a spree. There was just time to check in and find the ballroom before we cleaned up the grime of travel and put on our black tie best.
Yep...Blake indeed had a black tie...and studs....and tuxedo pants. But, horror of horrors, faux pas of faux pas, what was this? Instead of a black dinner jacket, Blake's tuxedo coat had....TAILS! In our rush, we hadn't checked the contents of the suitbag. Through ignorance, or naivete, or perhaps just a mixup at the rental company, Blake was now going to his first Washington DC reception looking like the maitre d'! There was nothing to be done about the situation but brazen it out. We went to the reception, standing with our backs against walls, or pillars, watching for famous people and hoping no one was really looking out at us.
Not surprisingly, our table...table number 107...was way out on the fringe of the enormous circular ballroom, well away from anyone we could recognize by sight as an influential politician or talking head from the opinion shows we watched back then: This Week with David Brinkley or Washington Week in Review or The McLaughlin Group. Our dinner partners were folks with vague attachments to the world of agriculture whose way had been paid by someone with better things to do than go to another DC banquet ...definitely not farmers who had flown in to breathe the same air as the elite and hear George Will speak. At any rate, we spent no time worrying about sartorial miscues while we were seated there.
The lecture was marvelous. Mr. Will can spin a pithy and acerbic tale. Later, we happily strolled the perimeter of the ballroom espying celebrities before they departed, having done their duty. Tails or no tails, we stayed up late to dance to Eric Felten's marvelous big band, figuring those left had partied long enough not to care what anyone was wearing...
....and, after all, the waiters were long gone.........
In case any of you want to read Mr. Will's speech...as relevant in 2018 as in 1995.... here it is:
P.S. We solved the tuxedo problem in 2001 when, in short order, Ann got married, we went to another AEI dinner, and Lee got married. We'd love to dust it off again.....
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