The Obama Diary

President Obama talks on the phone as he greets people outside the Reid’s House Restaurant in Reidsville, N.C.

Pool report (thanks Jovie): …. For lunch on Tuesday, President Obama and his entourage stopped at Reid’s House Restaurant in Reidsville, N.C…..

….Outside of Reid’s, Obama emerged carrying a plastic bag stuffed with styrofoam food containers and worked the ropeline. He dispensed hugs, talked Panthers football, his shoes - and he talked to grandma.

Laketta Hussain, a 33 year-old from Eden, N.C. was on her cell phone as the president approached. Hussain told Obama she worked in weatherization and held out her phone, “My grandma says hi, too,” she told him.

“Hey grandma,” Obama said, taking the phone. He pulled it away to examine it. “This is an old style phone, though,” he said, holding it out for everyone to see. The pool report said it looked like a cordless phone. “I haven’t seen these in a while.”

“Alright. Grandma?” POTUS said, with the big phone back to his ear. Then he proceeded to talk to grandma.

“I appreciate you. How you been doing? You doing good? … OK. I’m doing good too. Except your granddaughter needs a new cell phone. She’s got one of these big old ones,” he said. “Ok. Alright. I’ll talk to you.” And he handed the phone back to Hussain, who told her grandma, “I had to do it.”

There were some excited women along the ropeline. “Oh my God,” one of them said to Obama, throwing her hands above her head. “I love you.”

“Well, you get a hug for that,” the president said. A woman he had passed by earlier with a handshake said she wanted a hug, too. “What about my hug?” she demanded.

Carl Schmuhl, 36, told Obama he works at Miller-Coors, a brewery in Eden. “You got some samples?” POTUS asked.

Briefing reporters in the pool van, White House press secretary Jay Carney confirmed the obvious - Obama is “clearly enjoying himself,” he said.

President Obama greets diners at Reid’s House Restaurant in Reidsville

President Obama visits Bluestone High School in Skipwith, Virginia

Students react after one of them asked President Obama if he knew singer Justin Bieber during his visit to Bluestone High School in Skipwith.

“Do you know Justin Bieber?” a girl standing in front of him piped up.

Mr. Obama, amused, said he does know Mr. Bieber and he’s a “very nice young man.”

“But,” he added, “I think he’s got a girlfriend.”

President Obama greets people who waiting along the bus route in Brodnax, Virginia