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My Brush with Greatness
 
Hey Bart

I travel a lot so I run into famous people in airports. Not the really rich because they
have their own jets (except Shaun White who was schlepping his own suitcase and Fender
guitar to south america. He was the BEST. His folks did a real nice job raising him.
A real gent and he did not have to be-he could have been a real jerk. He even said hi to
my daughter on the phone and passed his gold medal around with a bunch of junior high
school kids traveling in a group. He is a very nice man).

But this story is about none other than Newt and Calista.
It was a quiet afternoon maybe 5 or 6 years ago in the Minneapolis airport and I was in
a comfy chair situated between two moving sidewalk thingys. I spy the dame first because
she is so striking and then the hulking guy behind her. I had no idea the Newt was so tall.
I always figured he was a shorter guy.

So they are making their way off the first moving walkway and I had eye contact with him.
The sort of eye contact you get when someone famous knows you have recognized them in an airport.
He gives a half smile.

I am frantic because I want to do or say something to express my outrage
but I am in an airport and do not want to get kicked out and blacklisted.

They are now walking between headed to the next walkway. Time is slipping away.

Think man, think!

So as they have headed away on the next walkway I jumps up and rush over and start
making the loudest, “HISSSSSSS HISSSSSSSSS HISSSSSSSS” that I can muster.
She whips her head around and gives me the glare. Newt just hunches up his shoulders
like he is deflecting the noise with his suit.

They just continue on…

There was nobody else around really and so I might have been able to get away with
yelling at him but it was the best I could muster under the circumstances and the very
few seconds I had to pull it off.

The story has bought me drinks and I am sticking to it.

Or then there was the time standing next to Barney Frank boarding southwest and asking
if he knew any barney frank jokes…or running into Nancy Pelosi on an elevator in SF
…or seeing LBJ passed out in the back of a limo…or sitting next to Willem Defoe…or when
I needed the secret service to help me break into my car…

I got too many to recall them all. Newt is my favorite.

Keep swinging the hammer.
  George

 

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