Big Tim's Bait & Tackle Shop

I actually met Tim Russert once. On Nantucket, in the vestibule of the Unitarian Church on Orange Street, on a warm summer evening in 2003. We were hosting a Caribbean Gospel Concert -- a sort of open-ended, open microphone with dozens of acts that lasted for hours and pretty much flowed out into the street and back into the church again until well after midnight.

I was the minister, but that night I was serving as the sexton and keeping an eye on things from the back of the church...so of course when he wandered in I recognized him right away, and greeted him with that knowing nod I'm sure he saw hundreds of times a day. Then he noticed my T-shirt -- "Big Tim's Bait & Tackle Shop" -- and asked me where I'd gotten it. And I told him it had been a gift from my daughter, who lived off-Island, which I think disappointed him. I think I was hoping for an actual bait shop. Or at least a local T-shirt store (of which there are certainly no shortage on Nantucket).

He hung around for awhile listen to the music, and then eventually drifted away to whatever else he had to do that evening. I feel such sympathy right now for his family, for his friends and colleagues, for everyone who felt like they could trust him to tell the truth about what was happening in Washington DC. He's one member of the press I'm certainly very grateful I had a chance to meet. I'm just relieved he didn't ask me for the shirt off my back. 'Cause I probably would have given it to him....