Writes John Marino:

This recent dust-up with the gate crashers at the White House reminds me of a story from my youth. In 1964 I was a student the the University of Wisconsin—Milwaukee. I was in the student union one day when I ran into a member of the Young Republicans. He was giving out signs for a protest demonstration at an LBJ rally to be held that day at a park in the then Democratic enclave on Milwaukee’s south side. This event was taking place the Friday before the election. Although not a member, I took two signs—one for me and one for a friend. The sign I took for myself was about one foot by three foot. It said ‘Barry is Better.’ I got my friend at his small business and we headed for the park. We parked some distance away and started walking to the park. We were in an old Polish neighborhood when a lot of people started running around and yelling. I looked around to see what was happening. Lo to my surprise sitting on the front porch of the house right in front of me was LBJ. He was sitting on the porch talking to an old Polish grandmother—or boosha as they are called. He had stopped his limo, jumped his security, and gone to this women he had seen. It was a mad house. I said, “What the hell.” I’ll take this sign ‘Barry Is Better’ and go hold it over his head. I walked up to the stoop where they were sitting and did just that. I stood with the sign over his head right next to him for at least 30 seconds, maybe more. Finally, sanity returned and I went down to the sidewalk. I started marching with the sign back and forth. Someone finally came running up to me and said get that sign out of here. I told him to go to hell—it was a public sidewalk. He then stripped the sign from my hand and dragged me to the ground. Nothing happened other than that. I could have stuck a knife in his throat or shot him. My friend did tell me, however, that I was being covered by sub-machine guns. This was just months after JFK’s assassination. What do you think would happen to me now?

We went up to the park, met the Young Republicans, and and gave LBJ the worst heckling he had ever been exposed to in his political career. There were only about 200 of us. We were surrounded by about 20,000 mad Democrats. The old boy didn’t know how to handle it. He even told the Democrat Governor sitting with him open mike “Nice people you have here.” This heckling was a big story in itself. Well, I lost my chance for worldwide fame because no one took a picture of me holding my sign. I think I was pretty lucky to get off like I did.