By Taryn Hartman
Legal News
So I drove a van in Michelle Obama’s motorcade on Wednesday.
I’ll take a minute to let the insanity of that statement sink in.
Ready? Okay.
A friend of a friend who works on White House advanced planning ops hooked me up with the gig, which involved driving a 15-passenger van of various staffers behind the First Lady’s two armored Suburbans as they motored around the city.
The day can be summed up three ways: crazy, awesome, and follow the car in front of you, which was drilled into my head starting at a briefing Tuesday night. When we were moving, from Metro Airport to Wayne State to the DIA and then back to Metro, it was fast-paced and intense. I probably won’t be able to look at a guy with short hair and sunglasses without flinching any time soon. Streets and entrance ramps were blocked by DPD and Michigan State Police motorcycle units that then zoomed up the left side of the convoy to block ahead. When you’re a volunteer driver (there were four of us in all), your job is simple: shut up and fall in line.
When we weren’t moving, we were waiting with the vans during an event and it was boring. And hot. And I usually had to pee.
There wasn’t really a lot of time for me to absorb the magnitude of what was happening throughout the day primarily because it was all so major. As I watched the huge black-nosed aircraft emblazoned with “United States of America” taxi toward me, I thought I was going to vomit. Soon the staff was disembarking from a rear exit, and I nearly missed Mrs. Obama, in a heart-stopping bright raspberry dress, descend from the steps at the front entrance of the plane into the waiting SUV below. And then we were rolling.
At the DIA, the volunteers stood with her for a quick photo next to the Diego Rivera mural before the luncheon began at the DIA. Seeing her in person is like looking at a doll; she’s as perfect as everyone says she is and as flawless as photos make her out to be. Walking up to her rendered most of us speechless and stupid.
As we paraded from Wayne State’s football stadium to the rear entrance of the DIA, throngs of people lined the streets and waved, cheering when the first lady waved back. More groups waited across John R. as the afternoon wore on, hoping to catch a glimpse once she moved out. And as cars sat on I-94 ramps as we drove past, arms bearing cell phone cameras hung out of their windows. People were genuinely thrilled to have her here.
Before meeting her, we stood and watched as she greeted and posed with the mentors in attendance at the day’s event, from celebs like Magic Johnson and Spike Lee to local figures Lloyd Carr, Debbie Dingell and Dave Bing. And what struck me the most was how connected to her everyone seemed to feel, as if we were hugging or shaking the hand of someone we’d known forever.
That’s something we’ve seen a lot with this first lady, and something I can’t remember being very common until the current administration. A year ago Vogue hailed her as “the first lady the world’s been waiting for,” and the warmth and graciousness everyone talks about her having s most certainly there.
I’m sure we’ve always held our nation’s first ladies in high esteem, but Michelle Obama is at once a departure from the past and a throwback to the Jackie Kennedys and Princess Dianas. We feel that she not only represents us, she actually belongs to us, giving us the green light to call her by her first name like a longtime friend. Many of us will never meet the first lady at all, and the ones who do will only have a few seconds she is likely to forget. So what causes us to identify with her and instinctively know she’s as committed and devoted to us as we are to the friends and loved ones we see every day of our lives? Surely it can’t just be because she’s tall, slim, gorgeous and has an awesome wardrobe.
