The arrival this week of President Barack Obama and his family for vacation is causing a stir in all age groups, including teenagers.
On Tuesday, a Times summer intern spent an afternoon in Oak Bluffs and asked young people the following question: “If you ran into President Obama, what would you ask him?”
Answers ranged from silly to serious. Among the nine young people interviewed, the boys tended to be more politically in tune (and if they weren’t, they could admit it with dignity).
Taylor Degnan, 13, Rhode Island
“I don’t know. Um, favorite song? I like music, and it would be cool to know his favorite song.”
David Millen, 16, Vineyard Haven
“That’s a hard question. Why is he so lazy? He said he was going to do, like, stuff… like help poor people.” He paused and added, “I’d probably just give him a hug and walk away.”
Emily Francis, 16, Pepperell
“What’s it like to be president? I don’t know.”
Ian Butterfield, 16, Connecticut
“I’m on vacation, but I do have family here. The day we were actually heading to the boat we heard about it [Obama’s arrival]. I don’t know if I would really ask him anything. I’d definitely say ‘its an honor to meet you’, shake his hand.”
Hannah Pasqualucci, 15, Scituate
“What made him want to be president? Why did he want — all of a sudden, just want to do that? And is he making a lot of money by doing that?”
Emily Hammett, 14, Oak Bluffs
“I would ask him if he would take a picture of me and him together, because I love him. Oh my God, I would be so lucky. My dad put a cutout of Obama in the passenger seat of his car and drove around with it for like a month. He stayed in a house right down the street from mine like two years ago before he was president. That was really cool.”
Sam Reagan, 12, Midway
“I’d ask him why he chose to come to the Vineyard. Yeah he’s staying right down the street (in Chilmark). There’s like a secret service car parked across the street from his house and there’s like a secret service car at the yacht club, there’s like a big trailer that the secret service are staying in.”
Lucas Sanseveri, 16, Connecticut
“I really don’t think I would ask him any questions. I mean, I’m not one for knowing much about politics or anything. I’d probably just do the…shake his hand, say hello, nice to meet you obviously it’s an honor to meet the President of the United States. I don’t really know, question-wise though. It would probably be more of a spur of the moment thing. An interesting question to ask him would be what’s his favorite band?”
Cal Mitchell, 18, Worcester
“What do you think about the Republicans filibustering the healthcare bill? I’ve been working on that one. I think he would do a lot better job if people didn’t always contest what he was trying to do.”
