A Brief Encounter with Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau

My only encounter with a prime minister face to face was in June of 1968. It occured when I lent my sombrero to Prime Minister Trudeau as he rode in the back of a convertible leading the 1968 Manisphere Parade down Portage Avenue.  I was sitting on a lawn chair on the boulevard as his car slowly passed by us.  He yelled out to me that he could sure use that hat as the temperature was about 32C under a blazing sun on one of the longest days of the year.  I ran to the car and handed it to him.  He put it on with a big smile. I thought I would never again see that sombrero, a souvenir of a 1961 trip to Tijuana.  About 20 minutes later an RCMP plainclothes officer handed it to me as he had been instructed by the prime minister whose car had reached the end of the parade route while the rest of the parade was still passing by us.