Not that he wouldn’t like to be. Well, love to be is probably more accurate.

But he is the only photographer Salisbury’s only former presidential candidate Elizabeth “Liddy” Dole would think of calling on Thanksgiving Day to come down to brother John Hanford’s home in Charlotte to take a few family pictures.

Maybe one would turn out just right for the official Christmas card that the printer was still waiting for. And if it didn’t, well, Chris has taken lots of pictures of Liddy and Bob Dole, so they knew he’d get something they’d treasure.

Of course, Chris didn’t hesitate.

If Liddy calls, he goes.

So he hopped right in his car and headed to Charlotte and shot pictures of Liddy and Bob and their new schnauzer, Leader II, who’s destined to fill the big vacuum left by the death of famous Leader I. And he took pictures of the whole family because it was a good time to do that with them gathered together for turkey and all the fixings.

And all because Chris, who’s back in school intent on getting a four-year college degree, used to deliver medicine for Fulton Street Pharmacy on South Fulton Street. Chris was only 16 then, and he had no idea he’d make friends that would outlast the drug store itself.

Nor did he have any idea that one of those new friends would run for president of the United States of America.

That still takes his breath away.

“I was going to East Rowan and working at Fulton Street back in the mid-’80s,” he says, and delivering medicine to Liddy’s mother, Mary Hanford, “because she had an account there.”

So it was inevitable. Chris is friendly and Mary Hanford is friendly, and they naturally became friends. Good enough friends that he figured it would be all right if he asked her if he could maybe get an autographed picture of her daughter.

“Because I knew she was famous,” he says.

Mrs. Hanford was sure he could.

“So I wrote a letter asking for an autographed picture,” Chris remembers, and took it to Mrs. Hanford to make sure it got there, and Mrs. Hanford got it to her, and within a few weeks I got a picture of Mrs. Dole when she was in the Labor Department. It was the same as that big huge picture that was in the Draft Dole office, the official Labor Department portrait. Now it’s in with the rest of my collection of autographed pictures and letters in my mom’s curio cabinet in the great room.”

The collection grew as the Morris-Hanford connection grew.

“Sometimes Mrs. Hanford would ask me if I’d run an errand for Elizabeth, and I would. And one day I asked if I could meet her in person, and she wrote me a letter and said the next time she was in town, we’d meet. And several weeks later, her mother called and said she was coming.”

They set a time.

Only problem was that when Chris arrived, Liddy wasn’t there. But she’d left a note. Two notes on Marriott Hotel stationary. He’s still got them.

“She had one taped on the front door and one on the back door, and they said, ‘Chris, so sorry I had to run to doctor with an eye problem. Should be back 10:15-10-45 a.m. Please come back — or call us for tomorrow. thanks! Elizabeth Dole.’ ” It was dated Aug. 1989.

Of course he went back.

And his friendship with Mrs. Hanford grew.

“I told her to call if she needed anything, or I’d call her to ask if she did OK during snow storms.”

One of the first times he saw Liddy, he went with her to do some Christmas errands.

“She drove the car, and we went to Spencer Rest Home and saw Norman Ingle and her aunt, Joe Cathey’s wife, and took gifts there.”

One day not long after that he was shopping and ran into Liddy’s brother, John.

“And he asked me what I was going to be doing and said if you’re going to be in town, I’ll get you to pick up Elizabeth and Bob. And I drove Mrs. Hanford and her Lincoln out to the Salisbury airport and waited on the plane to come in. Me and Mrs. Hanford drove right up to the plane and helped them load all their Christmas stuff and the luggage into the car, and then I drove them back to the house.”

Well, things like that make people friends.

And so much more.

“He’s fitted in anywhere anytime,” Mary Hanford says. “He’s been real sweet taking pictures, and he’s always ready to hop in and do anything he can. He’s very generous with his assistance. And that,” she adds, laughing, “suits an old woman 98 years old.”

When Bob Dole was here signing copies of his book, “Great Political Wit,” at Bookmasters, Chris took his camera and took some pictures. Liddy was holding the books as Bob signed them. But she had to run to a party, so she asked Chris to hold the books down.

“When you get done,” she said, “y’all come back to the house.”

And when he’s been to Washington, she’s gotten him passes to the White House and the Capitol and introduced him to her friends. And he prizes the gifts he’s received from them at Christmas time.

“The first was a tie and a bottle of cologne. I still have that in the box.”

And the Dole watch she wore when she was running for president. One day she took it off and said, “Here, Chris.”

And a plaque from the Labor Department and Bob Dole’s book, “A Pictorial Biography of a Kansan,” and a Bible and a White House ornament and campaign buttons the Hanfords brought back from the Republican convention in San Diego four years ago and T-shirts imprinted with “Leader Dole for First Dog, 1996” and all the magazines that have featured Liddy and a copy of her leaving-the-campaign speech on her personal stationary and her recipe for pecan roll cookies from her Bake Off with Hillary Clinton and Christmas cards that are displayed this time of year and notes from Liddy and Bob.

Oh, he’s got so many things.

And so many memories — Bob Dole’s 75th birthday party in Washington when he rode along with him to Annapolis, where he made a speech and the red carpet was rolled out.

“They helped me with my camera bags,” he says. “I felt like part of his staff or certainly his good friend.”

He gets started on all the memories and all the mementoes — and the influence they’ve had on his life, and he can’t stop.

In fact, Liddy Dole may well be why he’s bagging groceries at Food Lion now and studying in the general college transfer program at Rowan-Cabarrus Community College with plans to transfer to the University of North Carolina at Charlotte to major in communications and minor in business. And maybe some day he’ll still do something with his photography.

He’s always been interested in photography. He was on the annual staff at East and took the photography course at Randolph Tech for a year and a half. But he decided he wants to finish a four-year college.

“Mrs. Dole is one reason I’m trying,” he says.

Because of her friendship.

“It’s hard to fathom that you know somebody like that — people that you hear about and read about in the news and see on TV, but you know her — and she’s just real down to earth, like the rest of us.”

That friendship encourages him.

It’s kind of like she’s saying, “You don’t give up,” he says.

So, of course, he went to Charlotte when the call came recently and took the family pictures, and, of course, he was disappointed when his picture didn’t make the Christmas card.

But he understood. A news picture made in Washington when Liddy withdrew from the campaign reflects what happened during the year.

But Chris’ picture reflects the family he knows. Especially that picture of Liddy and Bob standing together, holding their new dog.

And guess what?

That picture that didn’t make it on the Christmas card is now the Official Family Picture of Bob and Elizabeth Dole with Dog, says Stewart McLaurin, her chief of staff.

“We’ll distribute it to people who inquire about the Doles and their dog,” he says.

And, of course, Chris hopes lots of people will. If Leader II is anything like Leader I, he’ll attract some attention. Why, he just went home to Washington after Thanksgiving when the Official Picture was made, and he’s already going to work with Bob Dole, the way his granddaddy did, so ...

So who knows?