How often do candidates do stuff like this without the press around?

 

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

How often do candidates do stuff like this without the press around?

Today I got an email via my dad that he got from an old high school friend of his. This friend, from Murray, Utah, was forwarding an email from her friend in California, specifically San Diego where fires raged just a short while ago. Apparently, a certain Reed Fisher, whose home and property were damaged by the fire, got a call from someone in the local LDS Church offering to help clean up. After telling them about a burnt tree with 20 year old roots that he had been unable to remove, the brother showed up at 7 AM on a Wednesday morning, along with his father, who turned out to be none other than Mitt Romney...minus the press corp.

See below for the story (note: the email was an excerpt from a journal entry by the individual, and I have not edited it except for length and names, to retain privacy):

Remember that big pine tree right in the front as you walk out the front door. It pretty well got cooked in the fire. In fact Brian *, Steve *, Chris *and Jeremy * cut most of it down the first day we were allowed back in the neighborhood. But the trunk and the stump was too much to handle that day. Last week a brother in the
Del Sur ward sent me and email and said he and some others would like to do something to help. I told him that one of the things on my "to- do" list was to remove a tree stump from my front yard, but it was a pretty big job! He said they wanted to come and do it. I reluctantly said OK, but, "I do not expect you to really get it out because it is a big root. It has been there for over 20 years." So he called me to confirm and said that they were coming at 7am on Wednesday morning and his DAD might come too. I decided to go to Los Prim os and get some breakfast machaca burritos and orange juice for the crew coming to work on my stump..so I was late in arriving. I drove in from Cabela because it gives me a better feeling entering our street as none of the homes at the top of Luz Pl were burned. As I drove up I looked and saw several men down in the hole around the tree.
They were really going at it with power saws provided by the LDS Church. Then I got a Big Surprise. First I saw Matt, then beside him with chain saw buzzing away was a candidate for President of the United States!!! You guessed it!! Matt Romney was there with his DAD, "MITT ROMNEY", former governor of Massachusetts
and republican presidential candidate. He was actually in Levi's and a blue T shirt and tennis shoes, with leather gloves and goggles. He was really sawing away at my stump! Others who were there working were LDS Bishop Jim Davies, Greg Davis and 6 LDS Missionaries. Oh and I almost forgot the Secret Service bodyguards were nearby standing guard. The Mormon Missionaries were there because they have been reassigned to disaster relief projects all over San Diego where the fires burned. They got assigned by their leaders to come to our home at 11372 Luz Place that morning. There were no local news media. Mitt and Matt Romney were just being good neighbors helping neighbors. Mitt was in Southern Calif for some meetings later in the day up in
Riverside/San Bernardino. I can really tell that the Romney's know how to work and to work really hard. I looked over my shovel at one point and sweat was running down Mitt's face. When I suggested we
stop for a breakfast burrito, I got a polite 'maybe later, gotta get this root out." Mitt told me that this reminded him of taking out a stump on the ranch with his father.after it was too much his Dad(George Romney) said get some dynamite! Well, Mitt attacked that old stump, cutting as many of the big roots as he could until it was
well time past for he and Matt to leave for their meetings up north. I put a Machaca burrito in Mitts hand and a glass of O.J. I could tell he didn't like leaving the job partially completed and neither did Matt. But I knew
they had "bigger stumps" elsewhere that day."