You couldn't pay enough to get one of the hottest tickets in town - a seat on the Working Families Party bus.
The first stop was in Fairfield, near the Greenfield Hills estate of Douglas Poling, who received a $6.4 million bonus.
Filed under "Lifestyles of the Rich and Shameless"
The first stop was in Fairfield, near the Greenfield Hills estate of Douglas Poling, who received a $6.4 million bonus.
The Colonial home, surrounded by neatly-trimmed rhododendron bushes, appears to have been expanded at least three times. Between Wednesday's naming of Poling and Saturday's bus tour, the executive hired two security guards and lined his yard's border with small white flags warning of an Invisible Fence for an unseen guard dog.
Slowly, the demonstrators walked up then down the hill as media from The New York Times, national and local TV outlets, Reuters and the Associated Press recorded every word and every movement.
But more than that, it was the surrounding neighborhood that widened Asaad Jackson's eyes.
"This is nowhere even close to what it looks where I live in north Hartford," said Jackson seeing a half-dozen huge homes, some housing their own swimming pools, gazebos and backyard patios; another has its own fenced-in, regulation-size, blacktopped basketball court waiting for a quick pick-up game.
"It's like comparing a rosy red apple to burnt toast, and that's not even the best metaphor," said Jackson, 24, who teaches African percussion and the trumpet in Hartford.
The protesters were well brought up; they offered to reciprocate the visit.
The only time Jackson says he sees police in his Hartford neighborhood is when they're looking for someone.
Jackson delivered an invitation to Poling's house to visit his Hartford home and see how much of Connecticut's residents live.
"You can meet with some of the people who experienced the brunt of the economic downturn firsthand like Willie Alice Huguley, of Hartford, who at the age of 83 is worried about losing the only home she has known to foreclosure," Jackson read from a composed letter.
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At Poling's home, and later at Haas', who also lives in Fairfield, a small delegation of activists left the bus, followed by reporters, to try to deliver a letter addressed to "AIG Financial Products Executives." The letter invited the executives to consider the variety of pressing social needs that might benefit from the amount of money awarded them as bonuses, such as health care, housing and education.
At both houses they were greeted by private security guards who asked the visitors to "respect the property line" and refused to deliver the letter on their behalf but allowed them to read it aloud and place it in the mailbox.
There was no shouting or hostile conversation between the activists and the guards at either residence. Police were on hand at both places, mainly directing traffic, and there were no arrests.
I'm sure that the executives took a long weekend trip far away.