booth gardner - Washington Secretary of State
booth gardner - Washington Secretary of State
booth gardner - Washington Secretary of State
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I ran away.” He walked to town and caught the train to Boston. In September, he’d struck<br />
up a conversation with the father <strong>of</strong> a boy from Providence, Rhode Island, so he decided<br />
to head there. He got a job waiting tables at a restaurant and found a place to stay. “I was<br />
on my own for about five weeks. I called the school and I called my dad. I told him, ‘Here’s<br />
what I’ve done. But I’ll negotiate with you.’ He said, ‘If you stay there I promise you can<br />
come back next year.’ So it was a deal. I went back to school. My world had been turned<br />
upside down, but I learned I was in control <strong>of</strong> my life, and that I could make it.”<br />
Laird Harris, Booth’s friend and former policy aide from his years as governor, was<br />
listening intently in 2009 when he related how he’d run away all those years ago – a story<br />
few have ever heard. “Most people who run away know what they don’t want but have<br />
little idea <strong>of</strong> what the answer is,” Harris observed. “You knew and you were ‘running to’ the<br />
solution.” Booth nodded. The memory <strong>of</strong> his declaration <strong>of</strong> independence was still vivid.<br />
As things turned out, his year at Vermont Academy was a welcome break from the<br />
upheavals back home. Although he<br />
was a year older, he was assigned<br />
to a freshman dorm – actually<br />
a seven-bedroom house – with<br />
Griffin and 12 other ninth-graders,<br />
likely because he and Jim were<br />
friends and the administration was<br />
nervous about him taking <strong>of</strong>f again.<br />
Griffin, who years later ended up<br />
being a key fund-raiser for all <strong>of</strong><br />
Booth’s political campaigns, has Skiing in Vermont. Booth second from left. Gardner family album.<br />
fond memories <strong>of</strong> that year in<br />
Vermont. “I lived on the third floor with a roommate and Booth had a single room on the<br />
second floor,” he recalls. “But Booth and I were <strong>of</strong>ten together in the evening until ‘lights<br />
out.’ ” One <strong>of</strong> Booth’s parlor tricks was to<br />
remove the arms from his spindle-back desk<br />
chair and play “Taps” on the radiator like<br />
a drummer. The sound vibrated <strong>of</strong>f every<br />
room’s radiator, Griffin says. “When he<br />
heard Mr. Lucy, our ‘master,’ sneaking up<br />
the creaking stairs and tiptoeing down the<br />
hall listening at each door, Booth quickly<br />
put the arms <strong>of</strong> the chair back in place. He<br />
was never caught. It’s a good example <strong>of</strong><br />
his mischievous sense <strong>of</strong> humor. However,<br />
Booth at a weekend party during his year at the Vermont<br />
during our childhood and throughout<br />
Academy. Photo courtesy Jim Griffin.<br />
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