It's a little odd to think of the connections Benazir Bhutto had back here to relatively regular people. A woman whose death has shaken the world was once a fellow student, a friend, a girl in the next dorm, albeit an already famous one.
Vermont ACLU director Allen Gilbert remembers her as a classmate at Harvard.
So does state Sen. Diane Snelling, who said she knew Bhutto indirectly through friends. Snelling was in the class after Bhutto's. Snelling's own father would go on to be governor of Vermont, but that doesn't meausre up to the kind of royalty Bhutto represented. People talked about Bhutto around Harvard as one whose feet never touched the ground, Snelling said, meaning that she was accustomed to having things done for her.
Peter Galbraith perhaps does not live as regular a life as your average Vermonter, but there the Townshend resident was receiving e-mails from the former Pakistani prime minister in the days just before his assassination seeking his help in preventing her death.
It's also an indication that if Galbraith were to run for governor of Vermont, as some suggest he might, that he likely has an roster of people in his e-mail address book and cell phone call list.
- Terri Hallenbeck
