Trash, art highlighted first couple's first date

The Associated Press

NEW YORK Ä Abstract art and trash collection helped spur the romance of young Bill Clinton and Hillary Rodham back when they were students at Yale University Law School, the first lady said.

"On our first date which was not really a date Ä we stood in line to register for classes, and after we finished we went out for a Coke," Mrs. Clinton said in an interview in the September issue of ARTnews magazine.

"We started talking, went for a long walk we ended up in front of the Yale University Art Gallery. It was closed.

"But my husband had been there a week or two before and he wanted to show me the Mark Rothko exhibition inside and a Henry Moore exhibition in the yard.

"He found a worker who said it had to be closed because of a labor dispute. And so my husband said, 'Well, if we pick up the garbage, will you let us in?'"

The future president and first lady picked up a pile of accumulated trash, then had a leisurely, private viewing of the Rothko and Moore exhibitions.

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