More than anything, the lesson I'm learning from this week is that I really miss John Heinz. I remain convinced that had he not died in 1991, you'd be looking at an either Bush-Heinz or Heinz-Bush presidency right now, and I'd think we'd be the better for it.

I only met him once, and what was amazing about it was the ordinariness of the affair. It was summer 1990, and my mother and I were doing a loop of possible colleges, we ended up at Dartmouth (one of those schools I was not so much looking at, as much as wanting to check whether they thought they were too good for me. When you're 16 and realize you'll never shake your redneck past, nor really want to, these things matter.) So in the lobby of some building of Dartmouth's campus there we were, and when they asked where everyone was from, there were two kids from Pennsylvania. Turns out the Heinzes were doing the exact same thing we were, just doing the drive around the country. (I believe it was Christopher, who did the introductions tonight.) While it wasn't something that would give me great insight into the man, I certainly gained a respect for him as a person, not just a politician.

I remember two things about April 3, 1991. It was the day that John Heinz's helicopter crashed, and it was also the day I got the letter from Cornell. Driving home that night, I realized that a similar letter was not being considered in another house. I've never felt good about that.