Word: commoners
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Around the Common, the yellow and white banners flapped in the overcast dawn. Nice banners, but the stylized monogram is a bit tough to make out. "J.P.--John, Paul" one spectator decides. "No, John Portak. I have to get one of these for my brother," another says...
Towards seven, the tension worsens, people hollering at the cops to let them in so they won't lose the places they earned by chilly endurance. The Secret Service insists on "sweeping" the entire Common first for hidden evil, a search-and-destroy operation that requires the pinstripe suit. When the guards finally give the word, the spectators dash towards the line of yellow and white barrels separating the notables from those who will sit in the same mud, but farther back...
...crowd isn't as big as some have predicted. By 10 a.m. there are still acres left unoccupied, and television monitors scattered in the far corners of the park look a little out of place. But a chattering stream of newcomers moves constantly across the Common, spilling out of the Park Street station. They are greeted first by a battalion of souvenir hawkers peddling commemorative medals, half a dozen brands of Pope programs, (the best of which has a full page of the holy father kissing the ground in different locales), dumb bumper stickers (I saw the Pope in Mass...
...blue-suited state police file through the crowd in a long line, creating a momentary wound that heals as quickly as they pass on. The police presence, lessened during the late morning, reappears in force. The Secret Service sets up new barricades, mounted police begin to circle the Common, and the state forces line the sidewalks blue shoulder to blue shoulder in a hopeless effort to keep the paths open...
...Secret Service receives a bomb report, and four agents with a German Shepherd rush to the far corner of the Common in a Harley-Davidson golf cart. The dog decides that the bomb is buried underneath the stop light at the corner of Beacon Street and whines until his masters, relieved at the false alarm, lift him back aboard the cart...