This “backstory” is a part of a collection of articles that describes some of the obstacles that Seven Days reporters faced while pursuing Vermont news, events and people in 2025.
One of the most valuable journalism lessons I’ve learned is that you can judge the quality of your story by the caliber of the material left on the cutting-room floor. If the anecdotes, examples and quotes that don’t fit are brilliant, the ones that do are even better.
That doesn’t mean it’s easy to leave things out. I mourned, but agreed, when an editor deleted the tale of how Vermont International Film Foundation supporters managed to hand-deliver a film festival T-shirt to then-president Bill Clinton — and alarm the Secret Service in the process.
The tale required several words, and it wasn’t central to the story — but it was oh, so good.
Here, rescued from the dustbin of deletions, is the anecdote:
In the early 1990s, VTIFF director Lorraine B. Good’s husband, Karel Samsom, was heading to Washington, D.C., with VTIFF supporter Bill Stetson for a Business for Social Responsibility national meeting. Good sent along a pink festival T-shirt and directed the men to give it to the president. They didn’t even know if Clinton would attend the event, but he spoke at a breakfast meeting, then mingled with the group. Stetson, who had served as Vermont environmental chair for Clinton’s 1992 campaign, introduced himself to the president. “He had questions about Vermont and said, ‘How’s Howard [Dean]?’ — that sort of stuff,” Stetson recalled. “And then I thought, I don’t have the T-shirt.”
Luckily, his wingman had him covered.
“Karel yells out, ‘Hey, Bill!’ And of course, I’m Bill and Bill Clinton’s Bill. So we both wheel around,” Stetson said. The Secret Service snapped to attention. “I could see them reaching into their coats,” Stetson said. “And Karel winds up and throws the pink T-shirt through the air.”
The arc of the swag, Stetson said, is seared into his memory, a pink missile soaring over the crowd in slow motion. “I reach up, grab it, pull it down and say, ‘Mr. President, I have a gift.’”
The original print version of this article was headlined “Best Anecdote We Didn’t Print”
This article appears in Dec 24 2025 – Jan 6 2026.
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