Former US president Bill Clinton today took a trip down the memory lane and recounted his love story with wife Hillary to make a strong case for her presidency, saying they have walked together in "good and bad times" ever since they met in 1971.
"In the spring of 1971 I met a girl. The first time I saw her we were, appropriately enough, in a class on political and civil rights. She had thick blond hair, big glasses, wore no makeup, and she had a sense of strength and self-possession that I found magnetic," Clinton, 69, said.
In the next 42 minutes which were marked with several round of applauses, cheers and laughter, Clinton through the little known personal stories of his with Hillary tried to carve out a picture of her wife in his impassioned speech.
"After the class I followed her out, intending to introduce myself. I got close enough to touch her back, but I couldn't do it. Somehow I knew this would not be just another tap on the shoulder, that I might be starting something I couldn't stop," Clinton told his cheering supporters.
"I saw her several more times in the next few days, but I still didn't speak to her. Then one night I was in the law library talking to a classmate who wanted me to join the Yale Law Journal," he said.
Clinton said his classmate told him to join as it he thought it would guarantee him a job in a big firm or a clerkship with a federal judge.
"I really wasn't interested, I just wanted to go home to Arkansas," he noted.
Clinton said he saw Hillary again standing at the opposite end of the library and she was finally staring back at him.
"Finally she was staring back at me, so I watched her. She closed her book, put it down and started walking toward me. She walked the whole length of the library, came up to me and said, look, if you're going to keep staring at me and now I'm staring back, we at least ought to know each other's name. I'm Hillary Rodham, who are you?" he said amidst applause.
"I was so impressed and surprised that, whether you believe it or not, momentarily I was speechless. Finally, I sort of blurted out my name and we exchanged a few words and then she went away. I didn't join the Law Review, but I did leave that library with a whole new goal in mind," he said.
"A couple of days later, I saw her again. I remember, she was wearing a long, white, flowery skirt. I went up to her and she said she was going to register for classes for the next term. And I said I'd go, too," he said.
He said they stood in line and talked and he thought he was doing "pretty well" until they got to the front of the line and the registrar looked up and said, "Bill, what are you doing here, you registered morning?".
"I turned red and she laughed that big laugh of hers. And I thought, well, heck, since my cover's been blown I just went ahead and asked her to take a walk down to the art museum. We've been walking and talking and laughing together ever since," Clinton said amidst another round of applause.
"We've been walking and talking and laughing together ever since. And we've done it in good times and bad, through joy and heartbreak. We've built up a lifetime of memories," Clinton said.
