Do you know who that is?

So, last night I took Carl to go see Cirque du Soleil's Kurios. When we entered the big top, they had ushers galore showing everyone to their seats. We happened to be helped by a very energetic Kennesaw State student who took this temp gig very seriously: apparently he'd only been on the job a week, had already learned everything there was to know about the traveling troupe, and you could tell he was very excited to be involved.

During intermission, we chatted some more and I discovered he was a trumpet major, had spent his teenage and early college years performing and competing nationwide in various drum and bugle corps, and was planning on teaching brass pedagogy upon graduation later this year. Wow, I thought... this 22-year-old has been around the block, has seen some things and probably has had three times the worldly experience I had by the time I was 22.

Right about the time the show was about to start again, heads started turning to the middle of the audience, and in walks some serious looking security detail, followed by none other than President Jimmy Carter who, along with wife Rosalynn, was being escorted back to his seat. The entire audience stood up, cheered and applauded for him as they made their way back to their center row seats just a few aisles behind us.

People were still standing and applauding as the show was trying to start up again, and I was like, what's going on here, is President Carter part of the show? Finally, we all turned toward the show which was now starting again in earnest, and our usher was standing in front of our row, still mesmerized himself. "Do you know who that is?!?!," he said to me rhetorically. I was like, did we all not just witness the same thing for the past two minutes? Then I realized he was simply completely star-struck. So I just smiled at him and nodded. I thought it was cute.

The lights went down and everyone turned their eyes back to the second act, which was freaking AMAZING. An hour later, the show was over, and apparently all the ushers had been asked a few minutes before the end to hold their assigned seating sections back for a few seconds once the show was over. So our Kennesaw guy came down and stood at attention in front of us while President Carter's security detail prepared for their exit.

The audience paused and watched again as the president, his wife and their detail filed down their row, down the aisle, and then directly in front of our seats and our usher, who was standing in front of our row still.

Then the most amazing thing happened... as President Carter passed between us, he paused for one second, turned to our usher, smiled and shook his hand, and moved on. It was so subtle and quick. I don't think anyone noticed except Carl and me. But immediately afterward, our usher had the biggest smile on his face and a gleam in his eye. I swear I thought he was about to just float away he was so happy.

A few minutes later with the crowd around us mostly gone, I turned to him as we were walking out, and acknowledged softly, "You got to shake his hand!" He looked at me with watery eyes and a huge smile, obviously happy he had a witness, and just nodded his head.