Hi there,

I thought it could be fun to share stories about our brushes with greatness if anyone has such stories. I have a couple of stories to tell. I'll start with one here and if this proves to be a fun idea I'll add the other story to the thread latter.

So, quite a while ago I was taking flying lessons here in the Seattle area. If you have been to Seattle, you may know about Boeing Field NE of SeaTac Airport. I was at the flight school doing whatever when I heard sort of a few wispers that Kenny G was there. Well, in one of my cynical moments I sarcastically said something out loud like 'OH, I HEAR KENNY G THE MAN IS HERE.' Well, it turned out that he was standing about 10 feet behind me. He was very nice to me. He shook my hand. His wife was there with him and she was quite nice as well. I've always wanted to find him again and appologize for being a jerk. Oh well.

Neil

Well, this doesn't compare with Kenny G I grant you, but...

I've met two astronauts in my life. The first was a couple of years ago, a fellow by the name of Paul Scully Power, who got to ride on the shuttle for some reason.

The other was quite a while before that. I got to shake the hand of a bloke called Neil Armstrong when he and Aldrin & Collins were doing their world tour shortly after the first moon landing. I was young at the time, and my parents had taken me out to the airport dressed in my highly embarrassing space-suit PJs. Armstrong came over and spent a minute chatting with me because of the way I was dressed. There's a lesson to be learned there. I'm just not too sure what it is.

Well, I don't know how one can compare a world class musician and an astronaut anyway. They are both obviously stars in their own ways,right? Very funny story about the pjs at the airport. Thanks for that. I'll tell my other story now. Well, this was quite a while ago now. But one night I had taken my married guitar teacher ( I was taking classicl guitar lessons from her), who I had a huge crush on, to a Chic Corea show in downtown Seattle. It was a pretty small venue and the band had taken a break for a while. Now, I had been going through some weird phase and like the day before this I had shaved my head. I was feeling kind of embarrassed by this, so I decided to wear a Stetson hat I had that wasn't new, but was in decent shape. I was fairly proud of it anyway. Ok, so here's this sort funny lookin guy walkin up to Chic who's just standing there off stage. No biggy that I met him. Anyone there could have walked up to him. So I say about the silliest thing I could have said to him. I said," can I touch your hands" Well, about then I noticed a big security guy standing next to him eyeing me rather suspiciously. Well, inside my head it hadn't seemed like such a stupid thing to say. I was into playing piano too and I,well who knows what the heck I was thinkin. Anyway, he had a sense of humor about this. He smiled and said 'sure, you can touch my hand if I can touch yours' And then he complimented my Stetson and shook my hand! Pretty funny, I'm the proud owner of a Stetson hat that was complimented by Chic Corea.. and I never wear it.

Neil

Around 1991 or 1992 Charleton Heston was in Evanston, IL (US) to speak at his Alma Mater, Northwestern University. A friend of mine was writing an article about him in a local magazine and I was hired to photograph him for it.

He was not only a total gentleman, but made me feel very much at ease as I was a nervous wreck to be in his presence.

almost 10 years ago (as my wife was heavily pregnant with my now 9-year old daughter) we went to the wedding of two friends. when we arrived there was an airport metal detector doorway set up with guards, and we asked "what's all the security for?" - it was a bit ott even for South Africa, where we lived at the time. one of the guards said "the state president is here," to which my wife replied a disbelieving "oh yeah, right....". Sure enough, walking into the church, there was Nelson Mandela; it later transpired that the bride's grandfather was in the cell next door on Robben Island. After he shook my wife's hand on the way out, some children crowded around to shake his hand and I wasn't going to push them out of the way to get my paw in - so I missed out on that bit (and my wife got to meet him at official events too!), but it was still pretty cool.

rob.

waimate: That's awesome! We've been watching a tonne of stuff on Apollo lately, From Earth To The Moon, In The Shadow of the Moon, etc.

Armstrong has dropped right out of public life and apparently doesn't like talking about it after all these years. Even during the program he was cool and calm, that's very cool that he came up and talked with you. (A couple hours after ejecting from a LM test vehicle he was pushing papers around his office, perfectly normal. I'd be in the bar personally.)

Mike Collins seems like one of the coolest people ever, in In The Shadow of the Moon he doesn't seem resentful about not getting to go down to the lunar surface one bit. Reflected a lot about being the furthest human being from earth ever in the moments he was orbiting around the far side.

In that documentary, Buzz Aldrin mentions he paused on the ladder of the LM to fill his urine bag - - Armstrong might've been the first human to walk on the moon, but Aldrin was the first to take a leak on it. Go Buzz!

Armstrong: "Ah. That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."

Aldrin: "Ah. That's better."



* apparently because of the way the audio was transferred, he actually did say "that's one small step for *a* man" but it was clipped when it came through to Houston.

I'll shut up now, I think I need to.

I once did a sketch of Troy Aikman for a buddy, and wanted to get it autographed before I gave it to him. The Cowboys had an open practice one day in Texas Stadium with autographs afterward, so I took the sketch. Unfortunately, Troy's line was a mile long and he had to hit the showers before I got close.

Undeterred, I hung around to see if there was another opportunity. I saw the team's owner, Jerry Jones, on the field talking with reporters and heading for the stands. I walked around to intercept him and just caught him as the reporters were done. Nervously, I approached Jerry, showed him the sketch, and asked if there was any way to get Troy to sign it. Jerry thought for a moment and then said, "just run across the field to the locker rooms and wait for him."

Excited, I hit the field. It felt so cool to run across those yard lines! But then I saw a few big security guys with headsets converge on me like a herd of Bill Bates clones (look him up). Jerry shouted, "it's okay, I said he could go!" and I smiled as I passed them.

Inside, it was so intimidating. The lineman emerged first, huge dudes with massive gold necklaces, joking about Troy's 10 million dollar contract. Troy was the last to leave. I asked for the autograph, he sort of grunted, and signed the picture. My bud was SO happy to get that!

At the time we lived near the Cowboy's regular practice field. I almost ran over Joe Avezzano when he jogged in front of my car at a light change! My wife didn't understand when I screamed out "Joe Avezzano!"

My stepson went to school with Jim Jeffcoat's son Jaren. I got to meet Jim at parents' night and MAN is he big! A very gracious guy with a nice wife, and one of my all-time favorite football players. I should have got his autograph, but felt foolish about it.

Another time a friend went with me to the grocery store for party stuff. He knew it was "Cowboy country" and was hoping to see players. I cautioned him that the locals took it for granted and NOT to make a scene. But sure enough, 3 new players walked in (wearing workout clothes) and he shouted, "DO YOU THINK THOSE ARE DALLAS COWBOYS????" The guys gave us a disgusted look and I wanted to disappear.

- was in Seattle in the mid-80s at a high-end hotel for a conference...

- i get in the elevator to go up to my room and there are four or five big guys in there... really tall, muscular...

- so i say, "Oh, sports players?"

- one of 'em pipes up and says, "Yea, Mariners."

- so i say, "Oh, I don't watch hockey."

- it was really, really quiet for the rest of the ride.

LOL, I find this story very funny. Man. What was it like on the rest of that elevator ride? One thing to know about the Mariners at that time is that they pretty much sucked and had not yet had a winning season. They didn't start to improve until 'Junior' and 'The Bone" joined ... I mean were stolen. So, those M's you took that fateful ride with probably didn't have much of a sense of humor for that reason. Hmm.. I wonder who they were?..

Neil

A guy I work with was in downtown Toronto and grabbing a bite to eat. He waited in line at the counter and looked behind him - - Bruce Willis was sitting there eating a sandwich at a booth.

"You're Bruce Willis!"

"mmmph" *still chewing* "no sh*t."

Geoff ordered and left. Quickly.