The President and my mother

The former President of the United States asked, "And where did you work for me?" He asked again, "Where did you work?"

Jimmy Carter was signing copies of his new book, A Remarkable Mother, a biography of his mother 'Ms. Lillian', at a bookstore today in McLean, Virginia, a suburb of Washington, D.C.

It was an efficient signing.

We were wanded by Secret Service agents at the door and then moved briskly along a long line. "No personal time with the President," we were told.

But my mother, Gene, would have none of it. She reached the table and began talking a blue streak to Carter, a man she considers a great humanitarian. She mentioned that she had worked for him.

Carter may have just returned from the middle East, meeting with Hamas and the Israelis, working still, into his 80s, to broker peace. But Carter had never dealt with the oratorical skills of my mother, who had spent her working years representing her country, and raising a family overseas, in the Foreign Service.

He tried a third time, "Ma'am, where did you work for me?"

I was standing there, behind her, and saw the President looking at her. I nudged Mom and whispered, "The President just asked you where you worked for him."

"At the polls," she replied.

And then, the President of the United States, paused, smiled and looked up again. He thanked my remarkable mother, Genovaite Cizauskas, and wished her, in advance, "a Happy Mother's Day."

We were moved along.