Word: commoner
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...bleachers of the papal ballfield. The radio and TV people fight to get their equipment working; photographers jockey for front-row seats, but with most of the press corps aboard the bus following the papal motorcade, the major topic of conversation among scribes stranded at the Common is why the ladies delegated to serve lunch to the media refuse to open the sandwich line until...
...crowd surges to the fence surrounding the Common to see John Paul, and they are not disappointed. The two-second flash of his profile, beaming under a wide-brimmed hat as he rolls by at 25 mph, is enough to introduce him to his following. But, minutes later, speaking from behind the altar into the driving rainstorm, his "program of faith" wins his audience forever...
...with good humor, laughing at the deluge. He does it with courage, calling on strife-torn Boston to forsake racial violence. He does it with simple humility--"the Pope is your friend," he says to the largest cheers of the day. But most of all he wins Boston Common with his larger-than-Catholic personality. People don't just honor or respect him, they fall in love, in part because that is what he wants...
When the service ends, and the crowd does its best to get home, the Boston Common looks much the same as it had the night be before. But the National Guard is gone, and in its place is something built by the Polish Pope and his rainsoaked Boston followers, made of stronger material than oildrums and polyester...
...with a big smile, Joan in tow. Gov. Edward J. King rounds the big green flatbed truck that the pool #1 photographers are fighting for space on. The truck and one of the nine press buses will join the motorcade. The rest of us will go right to the Common. A small army of state police and cars stands guard. It's raining harder. The photographers in the back look distraught...