Famous People

Ever run down the list of famous people you've seen? Mine isn't much, but it's very odd.

Margaret Chase Smith and Hubert Humphrey. Saw them in the Capitol when I was on a college field trip. I was pregnant. I bet most of you don't know who Margaret Chase Smith is.

Jackie Kennedy Onassis shopping in Bangkok, Thailand. She bought a statue of two hands and wrote a check for it. I watched her through the window, then she came out and walked to a chauffered car. Big sunglasses. Wrinkled short shift dress. Big car. She paid no attention to the people watching her.

The actor Richard Jaeckel in the lobby of the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo. I didn't even know who he was. My father pointed him out and was very cool. He gave the guy a little wave and the guy gave him a little wave back. Jaeckel was in "The Dirty Dozen" and a movie I like, "Sometimes a Great Notion." Every time I see him on TV, I think about my father and him exchanging the discreet waves. They're both dead now.

Luci Baines Johnson Nugent getting out of a car in a parking lot. I was just walking by and there she was. I think she was in town campaigning for Chuck Robb. Her hair was tremendously black, high and teased, like a stripper or an Elvis-era Priscilla Presley. (What happened to that woman's face??!!)

I saw Mark Warner before he was governor of Virginia standing on line for the sky bucket ride at Busch Gardens. It was right in the middle of his campaign. He stood on line like everybody else. Didn't try to cut ahead. Didn't have any park people escorting him to the front. That's why I voted for him. I also saw him at a garden party in Hanover County. Hanover is very Republican, so there weren't many people at this party, but he gave a good speech anyway. I covered it for the Mechanicsville Local.

I saw Elliott Yamin, as did half of Richmond, at the James Center when he was competing in "American Idol," and they were filming his visit home for the finales.

And that's about it for my brushes with greatness.

I've been to very few concerts. I've seen Kiss, John Denver, and a pathetic Beach Boys who were very far from the original line-up. I've seen Van Halen, but since Gary Chirone was the singer, it doesn't count, although it was no doubt the last time Eddie looked halfway good. And the B52s and John Fogerty (my favorite). And Marilyn Manson at the Landmark. How could I forget that?

Update: Because I worked in the same building, I saw former Virginia governor Douglas Wilder a lot. And before the primaries began, I went to a Donald Trump rally at Richmond International Raceway because I thought he was actually going to go far in the 2016 election. He did.