Years ago watching a motocross race, Robert Redford walked up and stood next to me. I didn't ask for his autograph, he didn't ask for mine. And I am taller than he is.

I sat next to Jerry Rice on a flight from San Francisco to Los Angeles. Others got his autograph, took pics. I wasn't interested in such.

And I was at a small conference/dinner, Steve Young and his wife were at the table next to us. Seems their baby needed a diaper change, Young's wife handed the baby to him to do the job. I smiled.

Had Vince Gill and his lovely wife Amy Grant in the XL a year or two back. A very pleasant fellow, and his wife was a peach. He ate all the junk food we had onboard. That evening the crew, wives included attended the small private venue we flew them too. It was a very memorable and fun evening.

I had fun visiting with him about the Oklahoma City area, where he grew up. My son was born in Norman OK, and he mentioned chatting with us during his gig. A real class guy and gal.

quote:

What’s your “Brush with Greatness”?

Met the highly esteemed sigmonkey.

Not sure I would call it Greatness, but I certainly grew up around and have associated with Excellence.

My grandfather was a member of Oppenheimer's team at Los Alamos, whose exploits I believe I captured in a former thread. His best friend was Andrew Wyeth's brother, who he worked with to co-establish DuPont's ME labs in Wilmington, DE. I am fortunate to own a few original Wyeths as a result of this association. I even won an art award in elementary school, judged no less than by Andrew, who was unaware of our families' previous generational connection.

My father's story is truly remarkable. He watched the Hindenburg fly over the DE river (on its way to Lakehurst) while walking to grade school and later in NY resided next to Helen Keller. He spent several weekends repairing the wooden railing that she used in taking walks.

My dad worked alongside the most prodigious product engineering group the world has perhaps ever seen. Pigford, Zeskin, Hullihen, et al... that group developed fiber B (Kevlar), Lucite, Tyvek, Teflon and HF-alkylation of gasoline (w/o which high octane gasoline would be almost impossible to produce). There were other inventions and stories to go with them, which many chemical industry legends regailed me with after his passing.

I've known a few celebrities: a couple musicians, an actor, a national reporter, a former NFL (Eagles) professional but I don't think of them as great.

The only one that would fill those shoes is probably my best friend: Eagle Scout and 2nd in his class at the Naval Academy. He was actually first but the powers that be his senior year wanted a female cadet to be #1; it all worked out in my friend's favor. A Navy pilot for 20 years, squadron commander, TPS graduate and his last naval role was Air Boss on the USS Kennedy.

Finally, a book was written about my friend and his family - sort of. You see, a certain writer lost his Navy pilot father at a young age, when his dad was KIA in Vietnam. His dad was the former commander of my BF's squadron. This writer only vaguely remembered his dad and, in an effort to understand what his dad and mom went through, he asked my BF if he could spend time with him and his family on/off his tours of duty. With all of the accomplishments I just listed, you would think my friend would be boastful, yet he's one of the most humble human beings I've ever met. Imagine my surprise while shopping on AMZ that I ran across this book and never once did he tell me or our other friends about it; honest to God true story. I like to tell my wife that this friend has led my alter-ego life but I know I could never measure up. My BF has never let me feel this way. B/c of his service and b/c he embodies those ideals that I find most valuable in a human being, that makes him "great". I feel fortunate to have such a friend in my life and thank God we shaped each other's lives growing up.

Back in 87 my girlfriend first introduced me to her Uncle Desmond. She said he was a war hero. He was Desmond Doss. Hero indeed.

I met the doctor that saved my life when I had gone septic from a double ruptured colon. This doc allowed me to go on to have two wonderful kids. Better than any celebrity. I’ve also met a few Medal of Honor recipients, a few generals, Purple Heart recipients and others. I still rank the doc as my number 1.

Several hour conversation with Chuck Connors seated beside me one evening, flying back from Spain to New York. He had been staying in Madrid in one of John Wayne's apartments, and was trying to quit smoking! Bought me several drinks, and we talked a lot about the military (a young Captain in my Air Force uniform), the Russians, basketball and baseball - nothing, that I recall, about acting.....

We had one of these threads back in 2017 so I'll just reprint my old comment.

Bob Hoover of flying fame. It was around 1968 or 69, making me about 15yrs old. My dad was a private pilot who was friends with an executive pilot by the name of Bill Clevenger when we lived near Jackson Michigan. Bill was also friends with Bob. It just so happened that Bob Hoover had just flown into the Jackson airport with his Shrike Commander to stay a couple of days before flying up to Oshkosh WI to the Fly in airshow. Bill called my dad up to come out to airport to see Hoover's plane and take a check out ride in it since my dad was thinking about getting a twin engine rating. So long story short, I tagged along and got to meet Bob Hoover and took a ride in his plane while he was flying. Unfortunately he didn't do any aerobatics with us on board due to insurance and legal issues.

Brush with Greatness, yeah, sure I got a story. Literally.

It was the late 70's and my Sister and I were sitting in the club house of a golf club, Tamarron Resort, just north of Durango CO. President Ford, now out of Office, was playing the course and we had to wait until he got done and left before the Secret Service would allow anyone on the course. I was in my 2nd year of College, so probably 20 years old. Naïve, you might say.

We were just sitting there when suddenly BOOM the side door flew open and a man rushed in, asked where are the restrooms, and zipped there in a flash.

Sis looked at me and said Is that Jerry Ford?

About a nano second later a whole bunch of very serious looking suits came in. Secret Service guys. Very serious people, as I found out. So, when you have to go, you have to go, and President Ford had to go right now asap, and he entered the room, Secret Service in tow, not in front and clearing and securing the way first.

After a couple of minutes President Ford came out of the restroom and started to greet everyone. Very nice man.

He came up to us and started talking to us. My sister is drop dead gorgoeus, I'm not, so while he was talking to her I reached down to my camera bag to grab it and take a pic.

About a nano second later 3 Secret Service guys were in front of me. Each had their suit open with hands inside ready to pull out their weapons. I about crapped my pants. One reached down, opened my bag and pulled out my camera, looked at it, and told the rest I was ok.

After a moment President Ford looked at me, reached out and shook my hand, grinned and made a remark about it's not a good idea to excite the Service Service boys.

He talked to me for a couple of minutes, then he slapped me on the back of my shoulder, dang near knocked me over. I mean, he was bigger and taller than me and just about knocked me over. At the time I was6 feet tall and probably 160 pounds.

He had that ability, and I guess any politician does, to be able to look you in the eye, talk to you, and make you feel like you are the only person in the room.

Oh, and I still have the golf ball he autographed for me.

Oh, btw, my brother in law, now deceased, took Donald Trump to court, and won. IIRC it was on a million bucks. Donald Trump does not lose many court cases. This was in around 1984-85-ish
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No real personal connections, though I worked protection details on several presidents and vice presidents including Ford, both Bush's, and Clinton, augmenting USSS. Other dignitaries like Henry Kissinger, Cyrus Vance, Mrs Marcos, Jimmie Stewart, and Norman Schwartzkopf, several SecDefs, and many other 4-stars and senior civilians both U.S. and civilian. Both Bush's were true gentlemen. Schwartzkopf was a force of nature. They all put their pants on the same way you do. Most significant in the Clinton Whitehouse was their chocolate Labrador Retriever, Buddy. Otherwise Jimmie Stewart had to be my favorite of all.

I worked on the Bush Library (W) and got up meet both George and his wife Laura and have a brief but casual conversation with the former President. Both were really nice and friendly and I’m grateful to have been able to meet them.

I worked in the entertainment industry for many years and have met dozens of celebrities and musicians. Some were cool, some were assholes. My favorite experiences were smoking with a very well known country star who turned out to be a really cool guy, and meeting Taylor Swift and Kelly Pickler when I didn’t know who they were and making some inappropriate jokes. Which they laughed at thankfully. I about shit myself later when I realized who they were.

Not sure he is great yet, but he has had a helluva run since 2013. A very good friend of mine is the sibling of the author of the Crazy Rich Asians trilogy (first book made into a movie and 2nd one is planned). I met Kevin at my buddy’s wedding before the books were published. Kevin is an interesting guy but 180 degrees opposite from my friend.

Back when I lived in California, my friends and I were enjoying a day at La Jolla Shores (upscale area just north of San Diego and by the world famous Torrey Pines golf course). We were walking past all of the high-end stores and my friends began to fling water at each other with their water bottles (I didn’t participate). They did it near the entrance of a fancy store and as the water was in flight the door opened and out came Andre Agassi. He had been bounced early from the French Open so he was already in a bad mood when he got hit with water. He yelled at my friends snd they deserved it.

I work for a bank that caters towards very wealthy clients. I’ve done mortgage loans for and scrutinised the tax returns and financials of some very household names. Unfortunately I can’t name drop because I still work there. Very interesting to see how some very wealthy people have their wealth diversified.

I did meet Kevin Mitchell in 1989 when he won’t the MVP for the Giants. Must have been an off day at home as he was at the amusement park south of San Francisco where I worked as a teen in the summer. I got his autograph and shook his hand, helped that I was a huge Giants fan.

I delivered bagged lunches to Hillary Clinton's Secret Service detail in 2005 or 2006 when she came to Clarkson University to fundraise for her Senate campaign. I was about ten feet away from the shrew herself when she was going out to speak to the crowd. I was happy to provide service to the SS detail, though. She wasn't very nice to them.

I built a set of custom pickups for John Sebastian. I didn't know who he was, but apparently he was one of the founding members of The Lovin' Spoonful, and later wrote the theme song to Welcome Back Kotter.

I shipped pickups to the guitar tech for Iron Maiden and Reba McIntyre.

Packaged up a set that were hand-delivered to Adam Jones of Tool backstage when they came to Seattle in 2013.

I built a number of custom sets for both Fender and Gibson's artist relations teams, so who knows whose guitars those went into, but they were endorsed artists, so names people would probably recognize.

I sold a Fender Super Champ XD to Willie Nelson's tour bus driver, and he later told me it quickly became the favorite little practice amp on the bus. There's more, I just can't think of it all right now.

Oh, and I wound a set of humbuckers for Kurt Ballou of Converge, and got to see him play a guitar loaded with them live, and walked up to him after, shook his hand and introduced myself. He was super nice. That was a bit of a mind-blowing moment as Converge is one of my favorite bands ever, and he played Concubine/Fault and Fracture with them, which is easily my favorite song of theirs (well, it's two tracks, but they always get played as one song).

I have had the pleasure of meeting two time Heisman trophy winner Archie Griffin two different times. He is the most humble and kind person you could meet. A real gentleman.

I felt that way everytime I spoke with a WWII Veteran.
Honored to have met so many.
Might be a thread drift, sorry.

The job I retired from brought me into contact with quite a few notable people in the automotive world. The most famous was probably Lee Iacocca. He was very approachable and cordial. Also had lunch with retired pitcher Jack Morris when we were putting together an engine for a custom car he was having built.

I graduated high school with Randy Johnson the Hall of fame pitcher.

He played Basketball and Baseball.

I played Football, Soccer and Track.

He had a serious case of Acne and a greasy Mullet in the early 80's. He was an odd bird.

A few years ago I found myself standing next to Dale Murphy at our local Costco, looking at shirts. Pretty cool since I was a huge Dale Murphy fan growing up.

I also met Pete Rose at a car dealership in Cincinnati. He was there doing a promo, signing autographs etc., but honestly, he was more interested in the ladies than his fans.

Finally, I had the privilege of listening to Col. Fred Cherry speak to our church youth group. It was fascinating to me as a 12 year old boy.

I worked for Roger Penske from 73-79. When he bought Michigan International Speedway he asked several of us in the dealership if we would work security for the first race under his ownership, he worked right alongside of us all that weekend.

Larry Shinoda, major part of the design team for the C2 and C3 Corvettes. Ernie Callard, the father of the GM Performance Parts program. Bobby Allison, met him at the dealership. One regret was the day I went to lunch and missed meeting Mark Donohue, this was a couple of weeks before his fatal crash. Chuck Miller, 60's custom car builder in the Detroit area, he was one of my body shop customers in the late 70's.

Drag racing. Met Milt Schornack, Jim Wangers, Arnie Beswick over the years. When a friend found out I was at a Barrett-Jackson sale in Florida one year he told me if I got to meet Linda Vaughn I was to tell her my friend said hi. I got a chance, her smile got bigger, she told me to say hello to him also from her.

Sonny Elliot, Detroit media personality for years, met him when his wife participated in a Cardiac Rehab program that I was in.

Art Cervi, played Bozo the Clown in the Detroit market 60's-70's, worked several car shows with him in the 90's through the early 2000's.

Sports figures, Larry Hand, Detroit Lions, 1968, he was a customer at the gas station I worked at. Charlie Sanders, also of the Lions, 1977 he came to work in the off season at Penske Chevrolet, he was in the GM dealer development program. When he trained in parts operations the parts manager assigned me to work with him. He offered me a position when he got a dealership. I moved out west instead, I understood he went a different direction and into the restaurant business.

Probably some more that I have forgotten also, time does that you know.