A (5k) Run for President

DURHAM, N.H. – Eric Olsen awoke at 5:30 a.m. and rubbed his eyes. He stretched, showered, and got dressed in shorts and a “Rock for Life” sweatshirt, then walked over to his printer and grabbed directions to restaurants and homes across New Hampshire, preparing himself for the long day ahead.

His University of New Hampshire dorm room featured an array of Republican political paraphernalia. An all-access pass from September’s GOP presidential primary debate, held at the school, hung next to a window, sill lined with various alcohol bottles. The opposite wall featured a foam hand screaming support for presidential hopeful Mitt Romney. The door and minifridge were covered with campaign stickers from several candidates, including the young man’s favorite, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, and above a row of physics and calculus books on the desk hung a large poster of a smiling George W. Bush. “Look at that face. Who couldn’t like the guy?” Olsen asked, grinning.

Hair still wet, Olsen, co-chair of UNH Students for Huckabee, threw on a jacket and headed outside to his white VW bug with a bucket of chalk. The first event of the day would be one he had organized, a 5k with “the Huckster,” and he needed to mark the route. After jacking up this car’s heat to ward off the October chill, he drove around campus, stopping every few blocks to draw arrows on the pavement. “This is really for me,” he said with a laugh. “I’m expected to lead the pack, and it wouldn’t be good if I got lost.” He wondered aloud how many college students would be willing to wake up early on a Saturday morning, and joked that maybe he should have trained a little more for the run, or worn more layers.

Olsen, 21, was once an active member of the Mitt Romney campaign, but defected to the Huckabee team after seeing the latter speak at the UNH debate. He appreciated Huckabee’s down-to-earth persona, and the fact that the candidate stuck around to speak with students after the event. “I was a little disheartened with the Romney campaign,” he said. “I saw him as a product that could be sold, bundled with conservative beliefs… I realized I was loyal more to the organization than the candidate. I never got to know Mitt, and he doesn’t know who I am.”

With Huckabee, he said, he feels like what he says matters. “I asked him personally to come for the run, and he did. Obviously other people made it happen, but it did start with that.”

While Romney and other candidates are ahead in the polls, Olsen said, he feels Huckabee can best relate to individual voters. “The unfortunate thing about the primaries is that you’re forced to play to a very limited audience, the hard right or the hard left, the people who will come out and vote. I see Huckabee as much more practical,” he said. “People like him. People trust him. Because in the end, he really believes in what he says he believes in.”

Huckabee is also much more accessible. While other candidates often send representatives to campus, he visits in person. He’s willing to be interviewed by the school newspaper staff.

Around 7 a.m., a group of Tau Kappa Epsilon pledges raked leaves off the lawn in front of their fraternity house, where the race would begin. Huckabee’s son rushed TKE in college, and the candidate became an honorary member last December. Over the next half hour, a small crowd formed, some people wearing sweats and t-shirts, others dressed in business attire. All wore colorful campaign stickers.

Clad in a skirt and heels, hair clipped back neatly, Olsen’s co-chair fit in more with campaign staffers than her fellow students. Opting not to run, UNH senior Leah Abbott had dressed formally for a mock trial event later that morning. Like Olsen, she found she was a good fit for the Huckabee team after comparing his campaign to other candidates’. Recalling a recent MTV-sponsored event featuring Democratic hopeful John Edwards, she said, “When he came to campus, he answered pre-picked questions from the press,” not from students. “You don’t get the one-on-one opportunity [with other candidates] you get with Huckabee.”

Bart Lucien, a junior from Roger Williams University in Bristol, R.I., had volunteered for several Huckabee events around New Hampshire but thought this one was unique. “This is a good idea for involving the community,” he said. “In races I’ve run, the community knew about us because we passed people’s houses. It was easy for them to come out and see us…. This is a great way to get people motivated.”

Ted Goldstein and Peter Darcy, both UNH sophomores, didn’t know much about the candidate before the run. “I wanted to get more involved,” said Goldstein, 19, “and see if I could still do a 5k.”

“I definitely want to be an educated voter,” said Darcy, also 19. “In the last election, we couldn’t vote, but this time, it’s relevant.” While he hadn’t yet chosen a candidate to support, he said he thought it was “really awesome” that so many of them visited UNH. “It’s easy,” he said. “The candidates are coming to me.”

Huckabee arrived at the fraternity around 7:45, dressed in a bright yellow New York City Marathon jacket, black warm-up pants, and a red TKE baseball hat. He greeted Olsen and chatted with the crowd, sharing running stories and thanking them for showing up. He can run an eight-minute mile, he said, but this event wouldn’t be a race. “I just want to remind you, you’re half my age, so be kind,” he said, smiling.

“[A marathon] is a great analogy for a presidential campaign,” he said. “Who’s out front early on means nothing… You need the stamina to keep going, no matter what. It’s my race, my pace, and I gotta prepare and carry out my game.”

After doctors diagnosed Huckabee with adult-onset diabetes in 2003, he started running, and was able to lose more than 110 pounds in the next two years. He is now a strong advocate for preventative health measures.

He completed the route in 29 minutes and 48 seconds, and glared jokingly at Olsen upon the group’s return. “This dude here chose hills,” he said. “Let’s take turns pouring hot coffee on him.”

He posed for a photo with the TKE brothers, and answered additional questions from students. “Why do something boring when I can come run with these guys?” he remarked. It is important that he speak with young people, he said, because the next President’s decisions will affect them more than they will his own generation.

Very satisfied with the turnout, Olsen helped break down the event and drove back to his dorm. While many of the runners planned to take naps to recover from rising so early, he had many more hours of campaigning to look forward to. The day’s schedule included a meet-and-greet at a restaurant in Exeter, a “chowderfest” in Seabrook, and house parties in Bedford and Amherst.

Once again, he showered and changed, this time into a crisp suit and tie, and hopped back in the car. In Exeter, Huckabee enthusiastically greeted him by name and commented on his change in attire. In Seabrook and Amherst, locals confused him for a campaign staffer. Olsen arrived back in Durham after dark, completely worn out but also thoroughly satisfied.

Behind Boston: Haymarket

String beans pile high in some crates; apples threaten to roll out of others. Every fruit and vegetable has its place; there are bananas and pears, cucumbers and carrots, and also kumquats, even loquats. At Haymarket, even the air smells green. Cardboard signs scream out: “Jumbo and juicy limes – 5/$1!” “Ready to eat avocados – 2/$1!” Exclamation points abound.

Vendors behind each stand, wearing hooded sweatshirts, jeans and, often, Red Sox caps, never stop moving. They always see another customer to attract, another box to unload. The stalls compete for the same clients, so presentation and service are everything. Plus, on this brisk October morning, it’s much too cold to sit still.

“Red or green peppers. For you, just $3,” one heavily accented man says to a woman debating whether to buy from his stand. “The prices went up, I promise! I sell to you what I get,” swears another. A child, barely taller than the pile of bananas he stands behind, beckons: “One dollar. Really – just one dollar!” An assortment of languages fly about; though plastic bags hanging behind each stall read “thank you,” shoppers are more likely to hear “gracias” yelled across the way.

Haymarket officially opens at 7 a.m., but serious customers arrive much earlier. Restaurateurs stock up for the week’s meals, and storeowners carefully pick the roundest apples, the juiciest lemons. Some shoppers stop by before work in the area, while others trek from New Hampshire and beyond.

The market opens every Friday and Saturday, regardless of the weather. “There’s a saying we have,” said Otto Gallotto, president of the Haymarket Pushcart Association, who has run a produce stand for about 23 years. “The airport may close, but Haymarket stays open 52 weeks a year.”

Every Thursday around 2 a.m., he buys his goods at the New England Produce Center in Chelsea. On Fridays, he arrives at the market around 2:30 or 3 a.m. to set up his booth and unload food, even in the rain, snow and bitter Boston cold. (It’s tough, he said, but this is what tents and space heaters are for.) He stays through the evening, and returns early Saturday morning.

The HPA oversees about 50 vendors who set up shop in a horseshoe covering Hanover, Blackstone and North Streets, squished between Faneuil Hall and the North End. Most sell produce, but others offer cheese, meat, fish and flowers. Gallotto estimated that the market has been open between 150 and 200 years, but said no one is certain. Most things have stayed the same in the time he’s worked there, he said, but the ethnicities of people selling have changed. “It used to be just the typical white, Italian, Irish men,” he said. “Now there are Muslims, Asians, Moroccans… Where else can do you find all of these people together?”

Gollotto’s friend Joseph Onessimo started helping his older brother sell produce in 1948, when he was about seven years old. “The only real difference is that there used to be wagons, or pushcarts, and now there are stands,” he said. “It’s the same idea, an open produce market.” He grew up in the North End, blocks away. “I’ve done it all my life, and just love it,” he said. “I’ve met a lot of nice people. Lawyers, doctors, judges, cops, they all come down here and shop.” Many customers have been with him for decades. “See that guy over there?” he said, pointing to a gray-haired man, “I bet he’s been coming around for 50 years.”

Gus Sanfilippo, an old man with hard-working hands, sells fish. He wakes up at 4 a.m. early in the week and fishes for hours, but doesn’t mind the time. “It’s all we know how to do,” he said, picking up a slimy selection with his bare hands. “It’s our trade. Some people are lawyers, I’m a fisherman.”

By sundown on Saturday, these merchants want to clear out their stock. While late shoppers may need to sift through piles of sad-looking pears and bruised apples, they’re likely to find that a sign advertising “4 juicy lemons for $1” will actually yield eight, or ten. “Once the prices start going down, people come out of the woodwork, no matter what day it is,” said Bob Randall, a seller for B&R Produce Packing Company, Inc.

Stopping by the market on beautiful spring or fall day is easy to picture, but why do customers continue to visit during the dreadful Boston winters? “They may be convenient, but most supermarkets do not pick the fruits they sell,” said one, Balbenah Williams. Grocery stores can’t beat Haymarket’s prices, either, he said. “There, I get fresh limes, maybe two or three for a dollar. Here? Ten for a dollar. And don’t they look good?”

“We would come all the time if we lived here,” said Christy Benefield, a Tucson resident vacationing in Boston with a friend. “We have nothing like this, all this fresh fruit. If I was able to hop on the plane right now and bring it all home with me, I would.”

Haymarket also offers variety that’s hard to beat. “Supermarkets don’t have food from the tropics,” said Puritan Beef Co. employee Balfour Gyew, standing under a sign that read, “Order your fresh killed goat – whole or half.” As he weighed a huge leg of lamb, he described how customers from abroad come to Haymarket when they seek hard-to-find items. “We’ve got hog and goat. We’ve got goat heads, even,” he said.

“People are used to routine,” said Gallotto. “Every Friday morning, Saturday morning, we get many of the same people – it’s a way of life. We rely on those people to keep coming back. It’s a nice thing.”

Profile of an ER Nurse

Susan Lambert’s most memorable patient planned to jump in front of a train, but changed his mind at the last minute. Instead, he lied down on the track and waited for the engine to hit him. When he arrived in Lambert’s emergency room, he was alive, though not in one piece.

Lambert, a registered nurse at Massachusetts General Hospital, showed how the man had positioned himself, parallel to the track with his arms out to the sides. When the train came, it cleared his body but not his arms. “Here we had to take care of this poor kid,” she said, “who not only was depressed and alive, but was alive and had no arms. That was probably one of the worst things to happen while I’ve been here.”

Another patient cut off his male anatomy and threw it out a window. “He did it, on purpose, because the ‘voices’ told him to,” she said, bewildered. “Then he got scared from all the bleeding.” The hospital sent police to find the organ, but surgeons were not able to reattach it.

Lambert, a woman with weathered skin and smiling eyes, wearing flowered scrubs and faintly sparkling earrings, said she liked the intensity of trauma. “I know it’s kind of weird, but it is interesting,” she said. “Patients come in, you assess them, make sure they’re ok, and then they go to the next floor and you get new ones. People tend to get sick real fast, they bleed quick, they break a lot of bones. Most of them get better.”

She once expected to study business, she said, but changed her mind after volunteering at a nursing home during senior year of high school. She attended Northeastern University and completed several co-ops at MGH, where she was hired after graduation. After spending time in orthopedics, the ICU, and other departments, she landed on surgical trauma floor White 7, where she now acts as an advisor to other nurses.

Working several twelve-hour shifts a week, starting at 7 a.m., she delegates tasks, assigns new patients, organizes discharges, and makes sure nurses get their work done. She checks on patients, changes their wound dressings, and travels with them to tests on other floors.

“Susan’s a caregiver, and she’s a phenomenal nurse,” said colleague Amanda Lutz. “I couldn’t think of anyone better to be in the leadership role. She’s supportive and she advocates for other nurses if there are problems. If a nurse is drowning with an assignment that’s too heavy, Susan will run to the rescue.”

Lambert finds herself frustrated with how her profession is portrayed on television. “The relationship between doctors and nurses is such that one couldn’t exist without the other, and we’ve worked years to get it that way,” she said. “Then you watch a show, and the nurses are depicted as subservient and stupid.” Some patients expect she will simply rub their backs and soak their feet, she said, tasks she is happy to perform if she has time but which are certainly not her priority.

Though she thinks programs like “Grey’s Anatomy” exaggerate many elements of hospital life, she does run into quite a few odd situations each week. “I’m just amazed with the things [doctors] find in people’s bums,” she said, including an intact jar of Pond’s cold cream. “Patients say, ‘I don’t know how that happened’…They aren’t all that forward about what they did until something becomes life threatening.”

The nurse also sees many drinking-related accidents, which make her worry about her children, Sam and Clara, a high school senior and freshman, respectively. "The drinking and driving makes me absolutely insane," she said. "Clara drives away and I think about all the head injuries. I go home and tell her everything, but I've been here so many years now that she just goes, 'That's nice, mom, I'll never do that. I'd never speed.' Right."

Taking a breather from her long shift, Lambert sat down in the break room, a simple space the nurses had made their own. Magnets and photos decorated gray lockers, and flyers littered several bulletin boards. One wall featured a poster about wound care, while another contained order forms for White 7 t-shirts.

On the third board, employees had tacked news items about the hospital. One stood out.

“These girls dressed in pink for me, for my four-year cancer-free day,” said Lambert of her floormates, pointing to the photo that accompanied one article. This year, she said, they’ll dress up for Breast Cancer Awareness Month. “We’ll have everything – pink lemonade, pink cupcakes…. Did I mention that we love to eat?”

Her time as a cancer patient made her understand her own charges better. “I saw what patients go through, having gone through chemo,” she said. “It was definitely beneficial for me as a nurse… I’m far more patient, far more tolerant of their moods, especially when they’re diagnosed.”

“Susan was probably a horrible patient,” said Betsy Potter, a friend and Arlington, Mass. neighbor, with a laugh. “She’d never want to sit and do nothing. She walks miles every day.” Despite this, she said, Lambert knew she needed to follow the doctors’ orders, to do everything correctly, so she could tell people today she’s a survivor.

“Without her I would not be as involved in the schools or the town,” said Potter, also a mother of two, of Lambert, who serves on the Abington school committee. “She means well, does well, and looks out for herself, her kids, and all the other kids in town. Susan has the biggest heart of anyone I’ve ever met.”

As Lambert ran into other nurses throughout her break, she asked about how they were handling their patients and workload.

“Should we send someone home?” one asked.

“I’d like to, but I don’t think we can. You know, we’ve had [an ICU nurse] over here for a while already…”

Her tired coworker agreed.

“I’ll get coffee,” Lambert said.

Later, she asked another nurse about a particularly sad case, of a young mother who came down with necrotizing fasciitis, a flesh-eating bacteria. The disease had spread when the woman went into labor, Lambert explained, cutting off circulation to her extremities. Doctors had to amputate both arms and both legs.

If the botched suicide attempter’s case was distressing, this was heart-breaking. “She’s got a three-month-old,” Lambert said, concern filling her eyes. “Isn’t that sad?”

As much as she loves her job, she's thankful she gets to leave it behind at the end of the day. "I walk out of here some days and think, I'm so glad to be home in little Arlington," she said. They think they have problems there, but I drive in and say, I'm so lucky to be here in my car. I've got all my limbs, well, minus a breast, but what can you do, it's not the most important thing."

Brides storm Basement for bargains

BOSTON - As the clock ticked closer to 8 a.m., over 200 soon-to-be brides and their teams of supporters got ready to run towards a sea of white, hoping to find the dresses of their dreams… at a bargain.

Friday morning was the annual “running of the brides” wedding dress sale at Filene’s Basement in Downtown Crossing. The chain’s flagship store has held the event since 1947.

Each year, special staff members collect thousands of designer gowns, originally priced between $800 and $9000, and the store sells most of them for between $249 and $499 and a few couture dresses for up to $699. Hundreds of people line up outside the store hours before it opens, hoping to be the first to grab the best selections.

Chris Chazen, 30, a doctoral student from Brookline, had been in line since 6am.

She said she expected pandemonium, but came anyway, “because the dresses are really cheap!”

Karen Hughes, a 22-year-old Dartmouth student who showed up at 6:40am to help a friend who will tie the knot this summer, came with a plan. “We’re just going to grab as many dresses as we can, and bring them to the bride,” she said. “We’re going to give her a balloon to keep track of where she is, and place balloons at the other places where we find dresses we like. We also have matching hats.”

“It’s going to be crazy,” Hughes said, “but we’re ok with that.”

The balloons were not the only strategy the bridal teams had to keep track of each other. The line outside the store was filled with neon t-shirts, bunny ears, headbands, and many other creative ideas. In fact, the store’s website recommends that the participants “identify their teams” in it’s ten rules for successful dress shopping.

Other suggestions include wearing comfortable shoes and non-revealing undergarments (the store gets so crowded that many women change in the aisles) and to be open-minded but decisive, because the dresses are not returnable.

Perhaps the most important suggestion on the list was to bring helpers. Moms, best friends, maids of honor, and even a few fiancés turned into dressers, gatherers, traders, and even guards to watch over piles of possible choices and valuable trades.

Jennifer Romano a 27-year-old projects manager from Revere, had her strategy mapped out. “My mom is going to find a spot for us to set up – we brought a mirror – and then me, my fiancé, and my best friend are gonna grab as many dresses as we can and we’re going to meet back up with my mom. We have walkie-talkies so that we can communicate to find out where she is. And then I’m gonna start trying on dresses with my mom and my fiancé and my best

friend are gonna be my traders and trade dresses with other people for me.”

Romano and her team, outfitted in rainbow clown wigs, were lucky enough to be at the front of the line; while she showed up at 7 a.m., her fiancé came hours earlier to wait. Though she is not getting married until 2009, she said she wanted to come to a sale before the Boston store temporarily closes for renovation.

As soon as the clock struck eight, hundreds of people ran into the store and grabbed as many dresses as they could carry. The racks were virtually bare within minutes.

After each bride tried on her first selections, the trading began, and women prowled the store looking for new possibilities. Some had signs on their backs calling for certain sizes and styles, while others resorted simply to calling out things like, “Looking for size eight to ten! Eight to ten, ivory, strapless!”

Twenty-seven year old after-school director Casey Thomas took only 42 minutes to find the dress of her dreams. “I didn’t expect to find one this quickly,” she said. “I didn’t at all.”

Thomas and her sister, who will be her maid of honor, decided to forgo the crazy costumes. “We saw the headbands, the bunny ears… but we were fine just how we came in,” she said. “We grabbed a bunch of dresses, traded amongst the people in our little area, and I got my dress on the third try.”

Caitlin Jeter, a student at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute, was second in line at the cash register. “I didn’t expect this at all,” she said. “I actually didn’t expect to find [a dress] at all today… this was just a bonding experience for the girls.”

Jeter, 21, who is getting married next February, said that she expected the event to be crazier than it was. “It was actually better organized than I thought,” she said. “I expected there

to be a lot more cat fighting. People were kind cranky but the staff was amazing.”

Patricia Boudrot, a public relations representative for the store, said she had seen some of that insanity in her years watching the sale. “Some people will grab... there’re so many team members that they’ll actually grab tons [of dresses], and then they’ll lie on them, and hoard them and keep them from other girls,” she said.

“But there’s crowd justice that prevails. People stare them down.”

The only fight Boudrot saw this year was not even among the brides. “Actually,” she said, “there was a fight today between the Channel 7 photographer and the Tonight Show photographer, getting in each others’ shots. That’s what goes here.”

While the first few minutes are always tense, she said, things lighten up. “You see the worst in female shoppers in the beginning… it’s so competitive, and they’re overtired and all that… but within an hour you see the best in female shoppers. Everybody’s bonding, everybody’s hugging, everybody’s helping everybody else.”

“People told me stories about people being rude but nobody was,” said Chelsea resident Glenda Connor, 25, a Boston Public Schools teacher who took the morning off to come shopping.

Unlike Connor and others, not everyone waited in line for hours.

Cassandra Sachs, a 24-year-old corporate treasury analyst from Waltham, saw no reason to wake up at the crack of dawn. “We weren’t the crazy people,” she said. “We were hear at a quarter of eight… and to be honest with you, the first dress I tried on, the first one that my mom picked out… I think I’m buying it.”

Gabi Walter, 29, a doctor from Boston, found luck when she stopped by in the evening after work. “I think it’s insane to come early because there’s lots of stuff left at 6:45,” she said.

“Without the crowds, it’s more organized. Everything’s back on the racks.”

Sarah Ferris, 25, an administrative assistant from Quincy, wasn’t as happy when she came late. “I got here at 9:30 and a lot of people had found their dresses already… I was at a bit of a disadvantage. I wish I had come earlier and with people – it’s hard to carry stuff around yourself and fight people. People get territorial over the dresses and if you watch them, they yell at you.”

Abigail Pizarro, 21, a home health aide from Tauton, felt the same way when she came in the evening. “I feel like I got slim pickings… I don’t think I look good in anything. I should have come with someone… I’m going to keep trying, but I might just give up and go get it tailored and pay the few thousand… I don’t care.”

Boudrot said she urged people to not give up. “We counted about 200 brides out there in the crowd, and we have 2,630 dresses, so… it looks very competitive but it’s not. You could come [late] and find your dream dress. The most we can sell is the number of brides that show up.”

Annual sales also take place at the Filene’s Basement stores in New York, Atlanta, Cleveland, and Columbus, Ohio.

Locals try to make a "Deal"

BOSTON - Thousands of hopefuls waited in line for hours on Saturday to try their luck at an open casting call for the game show “Deal or No Deal.”

The line stretched down two flights of stairs and into the main lobby of Seaport Hotel at the World Trade Center. The casting call was advertised to start at 10 a.m., but production assistant Brian McGuire said people had started showing up hours earlier.

Each person hoped for the chance to win a million dollars on the popular television show. On the program, twenty-six women wearing glamorous dresses hold up numbered cases hiding different sums of money. A contestant chooses one box to put aside, and then eliminates the others one by one. He or she aims to uncover small amounts of money in each round, to make it more likely that the chosen case holds something larger. Host Howie Mandel temps the contestant with counter-offers throughout the game in exchange for walking away.

McGuire helped control the crowd when people at the front of the line started to get rowdy and push others out of the way.

“Only come in if I point to you,” he instructed. “Don’t worry, everyone is going to get in today.” He said that the turnout was much larger than he had expected, and that he was surprised at how early people had come that morning.

Martha McDonald, 60, of South Boston, had been on line for over four hours before she made it to the front.

“I wasn’t thinking,” she said. “I thought this would be exciting… but it’s not anymore. I feel like there’s no light at the end of this tunnel.”

“Could I make it? No, no chance. No deal!” she said. “I didn’t dress up, like some people… but I’m a dreamer. That’s why I’m here.”

McDonald was referring to people like Northbridge resident Talia Luther, 34, who came to audition wearing a red evening gown and carrying a silver case, emulating the women on the show. Lambert said she wanted to stand apart from the crowd.

Others held signs and balloons advertising their hopes to be chosen. Earlier in the day, said McDonald, she even seen a man in a fisherman’s outfit.

Kimberly Ling, a 27-year-old from Quincy, was lucky enough to skip the line. Ling works at Emerson University, where the “Deal” casting director is an alum, and was offered a VIP pass.

“This is totally outrageous, something I would normally never do,” said Ling. “But it’s my birthday, and why not? This is about taking chances, and I’m already having so much fun.”

Ling looked over the application, which included questions from “What is your most embarrassing moment?” to “Can you rollerblade?” She was satisfied with most of her answers but knew she needed to write something that would make her stand out. She found her chance with the last question, which asked what she would do with a million dollars.

“My future significant other could spot me when I appear on national television after being chosen for the show,” she wrote. “We could have a dream wedding with all that money…. and Howie could be the minister. Instead of saying ‘I do,’ we would each say ‘deal’ or ‘no deal!’”

Other contestant hopefuls had a variety of reasons for wanting to appear on the show.

Mike Delacorte, 27, thought the judges might consider his status as a young, single father when making their decision. “Getting on would be a thrill,” he said. “I have a son, and I’d love to make money for the two of us. Plus, he’d get a kick out of it.”

Delacorte, of Providence, became another VIP when he was the lucky caller on a local radio station.

Kathy Connor, a 55-year-old from Duxbury, said she knew she was ready for an adventure.

“I was a flight attendant in Desert Storm, so I’m ready for anything,” she said. She wrote a book about her experience in the war, and said she would use any money she won on the show to publish it and raise funds for injured troops.

George D’Angelo, 41, of Lynn, must have impressed the judges, because he was chosen to advance to the second round of the competition. He ran out of the judging room exclaiming with joy, and shared his thoughts on why he was successful.

“The trick is to be yourself, be spunky, be smiling, have energy… don’t be an obsessive fan of the show,” he said.

D’Angelo and others who made it through Saturday’s auditions were invited back for a second round on Monday. According to McGuire, the casting team will give more in-depth, personal interviews to see if they can find the best contestants for the show.