And the answer is…

…Americans don’t know the Constitution!

I’ve just finished the second and longest part of my involvement in “Constitution Challenge,” a PBS program that aims to teach 10th graders about the US Constitution. It’s in a game show format: to introduce a new question, the host throws it to a “man on the street” - that’d be me - who poses questions to random passing strangers. We shot in four cities, in a total of seven locations. Here’s a rundown of where we shot and what it was like…

Day 1: Cambridge & Boston, MA

We started our first day at Harvard Square. I learned very quickly that I should put down the clipboard I was carrying around with my question on it, as it tended to make people wary of me if I got within 50 feet of them. I also started the morning wearing a sport coat; I’d brought two of them with me for the week and I think I was on camera wearing one for all of about five minutes before it got too hot to keep it on.

It took a little while to warm up that day; it was difficult to get into approaching people to ask them to talk to me. This may explain why I made the mistake of talking to a rather seedy looking homeless guy. Once I found out that my best opening line was something that included the words “Excuse me, I’m with PBS…” I was set. The show’s producer and our grip/asst. camera also hit on the idea of pointing and talking to the people who showed any kind interest in us as a way to slow them down long enough for me to make my pitch.

After shooting in the pit for an hour or so we moved up Mass. Ave. to a position where we shooting into Harvard Yard. I talked to several folks there; a memorable group were the four orthopaedic nurses from Minnesota, in town for a convention. They were killing time until their flight home and were fun to talk to. They were also the first of many groups who needed to take pictures of themselves with a bona fide TV crew.

Finished with Harvard, we took the T over to Boston Common and hiked up Beacon Hill to a bar called the 21st Amendment, right across the street from the Massachusets State House. It was kind of amazing to find so many people unable to answer the question “which amendment was repealed by the 21st Amendment.” We thought the answer would be pretty obvious, standing outside that bar. But the people on Beacon Hill weren’t nearly as friendly as those in Harvard Square. I got a lot of the “I work across the street, I can’t talk to the media” thing. Come on people, it’s freaking PBS.

My friend Jim, a citizen of the Commonwealth, had accompanied us on our trip to the State House. He took us down the hill to a small restaurant called The Grotto, where we enjoyed the most excellent food of the trip. We backtracked to our hotel, hopped in the minivan, and headed for The Big City. And that will be my next post, because Joe’s getting all snippy about me not posting this one. :p