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What’s your “Brush with Greatness”? Login/Join 
It's not you,
it's me.
Picture of RAMIUS
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I was once arrested on national TV. Big Grin
 
Posts: 7016 | Location: Right outside Philly | Registered: September 08, 2005Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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I've had several beers with Norm from Cheers. Aka George Wendt. Great guy, very personable. He was in my hometown for Oktoberfest and he came into the bar. I was one of the few who recognized him I guess or maybe even cared. He sat at my table and let me buy him a beer and then he bought me one back. Seen him again the following day at the event at the brewery and we shared some more time.


"Fixed fortifications are monuments to mans stupidity" - George S. Patton
 
Posts: 8705 | Location: Minnesota | Registered: June 17, 2007Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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I met a German ME-262 pilot in 1993. That was pretty cool.
 
Posts: 3553 | Location: Alexandria, VA | Registered: March 07, 2011Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Little ray
of sunshine
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I performed (in a small way - as a non-singing extra) with Houston Grand Opera for a number of years. I just did it for fun - they paid, but the amount was almost nothing. But I met many big name opera singers over the years. Many would be known to opera fans, but more generally known names included Eva Marton, Mirella Freni, Tom Allen, and Placido Domingo.

I met daddy George Bush in a receiving line at a ship commissioning when he was Vice President.

And once I ate at a restaurant and Cesar Romero (yes, the Joker) was at the table next to me.




The fish is mute, expressionless. The fish doesn't think because the fish knows everything.
 
Posts: 53408 | Location: Texas | Registered: February 10, 2004Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Official Space Nerd
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quote:
Originally posted by Batty67:
I met a German ME-262 pilot in 1993. That was pretty cool.


Guy's name wasn't Franz Stigler by any chance, was it?

He was the subject of the OUTSTANDING book "A Higher Call" by Adam Makos: https://www.amazon.com/Higher-...r-Torn/dp/0425255735



Fear God and Dread Nought
Admiral of the Fleet Sir Jacky Fisher
 
Posts: 21965 | Location: Hobbiton, The Shire, Middle Earth | Registered: September 27, 2004Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Page late and a dollar short
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For the 60's crowd here who remember the MC-5. First time I saw them was in about 1965, they played at a sock hop at my Junior High School as the Motor City Five, typical garage band of that era. One of the members cousin also attended my school, that is how we got them as the band.

Fast forward to 2019, the South Lyon District Library had a guest speaker there, Wayne Kramer. I went to it, took a CD of "Kick Out The Jams" to get it autographed if possible. I had a short conversation with him about the real early days of the band and that concert. When I mentioned the classmate's names he said "those are my cousins!" So the mystery of who my classmates cousin was is solved.


-------------------------------------——————
————————--Ignorance is a powerful tool if applied at the right time, even, usually, surpassing knowledge(E.J.Potter, A.K.A. The Michigan Madman)
 
Posts: 8498 | Location: Livingston County Michigan USA | Registered: August 11, 2002Reply With QuoteReport This Post
I'd rather have luck
than skill any day
Picture of mjlennon
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quote:
Originally posted by GWbiker:
I met Jay Leno in mid '80's at Daytona Beach during bike Week. I was looking at a rare Vincent Black Shadow motorcycle, when this guy dressed in brown leathers walked up and said: "I have one of those".

I was thinking: "Yeah, right".

We chatted a while and he left. Fellow next to me said: "That's Jay Leno".

Me: "Who's Jay Leno?"

I worked nights back then.
Ha! So it wasn't me but was my dad sometime during the 70s or 80s. He used to work for an airline. Was deadheading and was seated next to a gentleman in first class. They're talking it up, dad asks him what he did for a living. He advised he was an actor. Dad asks, "anything I know?" He mentions the TV series Star Trek. Dad says, nope, never heard of it. He said that he and Mr. Shatner had a great conversation the rest of the flight not talking about Captain Kirk.
 
Posts: 1858 | Location: Fayetteville, Georgia | Registered: December 08, 2005Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Do---or do not.
There is no try.
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Met George W. Bush when he was Governor of Texas. I and a friend of mine had gotten a bill passed that brought equal peace officer status for reserves in Texas, and we were invited to the bill signing ceremony. He was very cordial and outgoing, and I have the autographed photo of the event.

Met the one and only Ann Sheridan when I was 10 years old. She was engaged to my uncle (also an actor) at the time, and they later married. She was the most down to earth, unpretentious, and intelligent Hollywood person I have ever met, before or since.
 
Posts: 4601 | Registered: January 01, 2004Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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Wouldn't classify it as "Greatness", but I almost ran G. Gordon Liddy over. I was pulling into a gas station in Phoenix in the late '80s when an individual stepped backward off the pump island in front of me. Didn't hit him, but he looked familiar-close cropped hair, moustache, sunglasses and dressed in black with kind of an intense look to him. I finally put it all together when I saw the license plate on his black Volvo- H2OGATE.
 
Posts: 790 | Location: SW Michigan | Registered: January 21, 2009Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Page late and a dollar short
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quote:
Originally posted by snoris:


Met the one and only Ann Sheridan when I was 10 years old. She was engaged to my uncle (also an actor) at the time, and they later married. She was the most down to earth, unpretentious, and intelligent Hollywood person I have ever met, before or since.


She was one of my favorite actresses of that era. I was in my teens at the time of her passing and was still a fan of movies of the 30's and 40's even then.


-------------------------------------——————
————————--Ignorance is a powerful tool if applied at the right time, even, usually, surpassing knowledge(E.J.Potter, A.K.A. The Michigan Madman)
 
Posts: 8498 | Location: Livingston County Michigan USA | Registered: August 11, 2002Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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Im a fan as well. Nora Prentiss was great.
 
Posts: 17695 | Location: Stuck at home | Registered: January 02, 2015Reply With QuoteReport This Post
delicately calloused
Picture of darthfuster
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quote:
Originally posted by Scoutmaster:
I did meet Evil Knievel at his Snake River jump attempt. I was into motorcycles back in the day (but I sold my Husky race bike to buy a diamond ring 47 years ago)


I played that same gambit when I abandoned my athletic life for the company of Mrs DF. Sports were never going to love me back.



You’re a lying dog-faced pony soldier
 
Posts: 29997 | Location: Norris Lake, TN | Registered: May 07, 2008Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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quote:
Originally posted by Hound Dog:
quote:
Originally posted by Batty67:
I met a German ME-262 pilot in 1993. That was pretty cool.


Guy's name wasn't Franz Stigler by any chance, was it?

He was the subject of the OUTSTANDING book "A Higher Call" by Adam Makos: https://www.amazon.com/Higher-...r-Torn/dp/0425255735


Sorry, couldn't say. I wish I could have done more than briefly met him and listened in on the story of how he survived the war (engine failure) and he was able to bail out in a sky full of Mustangs.
 
Posts: 3553 | Location: Alexandria, VA | Registered: March 07, 2011Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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Many years ago, I was seated alone at a crowded restaurant in Pleasanton, CA. A big, cheerful guy asked if he could sit with me. I said sure, and he started talking. I tried hard to remember where I had seen the guy, and it finally clicked. "You're the Ace Hardware guy!" I said. He laughed and replied, "I used to be in football, too." I later learned his name was John Madden.
 
Posts: 17317 | Location: Lexington, KY | Registered: October 15, 2006Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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A book signing was going on in the early 70's at the Hyatt Regency Atlanta. Went to the restroom which had 3 walkups. The middle one was available so I took it. To my left stood Herman Wouk and to my right Lawrence Welk. I resisted the temptation to see if there were any tiny bubbles.
 
Posts: 847 | Location: Southeast Tennessee | Registered: September 30, 2008Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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Norman Schwarzkopf, a one star at the time, yelled at me for throwing snowballs at his son.
 
Posts: 18 | Location: South Texas | Registered: January 29, 2006Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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Back about 1996, was in the pits for Bike Week, "helping out," whilst the importer was racing a couple of Bimotas in the super singles races, which we had gotten prepped, then took in vans nonstop to Daytona, and got to see Sir John Surtees astride a Norton, puttering around the pit lane.

Must admit was agog to see him; giddy i were Smile


Does this count?




 
Posts: 4918 | Registered: June 06, 2012Reply With QuoteReport This Post
I have a very particular
set of skills
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Probably the closest thing that might 'count'- I went to wrestling camps and trained with John Smith and Dave Schultz, both Olympic Gold Medalists.

Boss


A real life Sisyphus...
"It's not the critic who counts..." TR
Exodus 23.2: Do not follow the crowd in doing wrong...
Despite some people's claims to the contrary, 5 lbs. is actually different than 12 lbs.
It's never simple/easy.
 
Posts: 4992 | Location: In the arena... | Registered: December 18, 2005Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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Back in the early 1970s when I started with Social Security I interviewed an elderly gentleman whose wife had just died. I say elderly but he was in very good shape and looked younger than his actual age. He had a military bearing about him, a full head of hair, and a crew cut. It happened to come up that he was a retired federal employee. Turned out he was a retired Treasury Agent. He worked with Elliott Ness. He show me a picture of himself with several other guys in a "tough guy" pose scowling at the camera holding a Thompson submachine gun. He pointed to one of the guys and said "That's Elliott Ness."

I took a retirement claim from the pool player Willie Masconi in 1975.

Met a few politicians whose names you might recognize, but not worth mentioning. Don't think they were brushes with greatness.

I went out in the field to interview a guy in his 90s who hadn't used Medicare in over 20 years. That's often a sign of fraud - someone is deceased and somebody is pocketing his checks. Turned out he was alive. He was in excellent health and hadn't seen a doctor in 20 years, except once when he went to a VA clinic and didn't need Medicare. He was a Black guy who served in the segregated US Army. He drove a truck and carried supplies to units all over Italy. When a unit needed supplies, he said nobody cared what color he was as long as he made the delivery. He was a great guy that I thoroughly enjoyed talking to. One of my favorite interviews from my career.
 
Posts: 1086 | Location: New Jersey  | Registered: May 03, 2019Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Victim of Life's
Circumstances
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I didn't consider him great but I have made a lot of money because of him. Papa John grew up 3 doors down from me and, being 10 years younger, he took over the chores I used to do after I left home. My dad loaned him his pickup numerous times to haul furniture to Ball State. His first pizza joint really was in a broom closet of his dads bar and I traded him pizza for Christmas trees in the early years. Got in on the ipo and still have a fair amount of stock. And a previous poster mentioned John's brother Chuck and I agree, he is the nicer of the two. John is, and always was, all about business.

Also am acquainted with Hank Williams Jr from National Gun Day gunshows. He borrowed my borelight a couple shows ago and laughed that he'd been buying guns from me for 30 years. He hasn't but I agreed and told him that he'd been buying them from my uncle before that. He had.


________________________
God spelled backwards is dog
 
Posts: 4870 | Location: Sunnyside of Louisville | Registered: July 04, 2007Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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