I grew up in and lived in small towns in northwest Missouri and southwest Iowa until I moved to Omaha in my late forties. Like everyone else in the whole country, I watched movies and television programs and wondered about the actors—who they were and what they were like. I listened to music on the radio and thought that the singers and musicians must be really interesting people. News programs and newspapers told me about important people—those politicians—public servants, for instance, who made significant decisions about my life and my country. Celebrities and Very Important People were fascinating, but they weren’t part of my small town existence. I hadn’t even graduated from high school, however, when I began to realize that it was possible to meet those celebrities. Sometimes I’ve been surprised by the unexpected opportunities I’ve had to rub elbows with them both as part of a crowd and one on one.
In the spring of my junior year in high school, my English teacher assigned the class to write essays that were to be entered in a contest. It was the first time that I had ever written anything like this, but I actually won! The prize was that I spent five days the following June touring Washington, D.C., with 900 other high school juniors from 27 different states. We were typical tourists, gawking at the statues and monuments and all the buildings we’d read about in our history books and always looking and hoping to see someone famous. One afternoon my delegation from Missouri was at the White House when President Johnson came out to greet us on the lawn across from Lafayette Park. He made some comments about our abilities as students and then spent a few seconds shaking hands as politicians do in any crowd. Since I was standing close to the sidewalk where he passed, I got to shake his hand. That was my first close encounter with the “rich and famous.”
Several years later, I had become an English teacher myself. In 1991 I was attending the National Council of Teachers of English fall convention in Atlanta, Georgia. Part of the excitement of that convention was that we were to be the first public audience for Mel Gibson’s new movie version of Hamlet. Almost 1,000 of us crowded into a large theatre in Atlanta to watch the movie. It was terrific! I very much liked the interpretation. Mel was good as the tragic Prince of Denmark and he had also made his directorial debut with this film (I don’t know what has happened with him since then). When the movie was over, NCTE President Shirley Haley-James came on stage to talk briefly about this opportunity and, the biggest surprise of all, to introduce Mel Gibson! He was there in person to gauge the reactions of those he thought would be his toughest critics—English teachers.
I had been a member of several committees for NCTE and had worked with Shirley Haley-James and a few of the other national officers. After the movie, I was standing outside the theatre talking with some of the officers, when Shirley came to our small group with Mel in tow! I met him, shook his hand, and told him how much I had enjoyed the movie. That was a real treat for me to meet someone whose work I enjoyed, but my appreciation for Mel Gibson grew a few months later when I received in the mail an autographed picture of him!
When I’ve gone to places like the nation’s capital or to a national convention—places where famous people might be found—I haven’t been too surprised to see them or, I guess, even to meet them. It’s a much bigger surprise, however, when I’ve been doing something fairly routine, part of my daily activities, and have the same experiences. While waiting on my flight to be called at Eppley Air Field early one morning, I had a pleasant conversation with then-Nebraska Governor Kay Orr. She was on her way to Washington, D.C., to talk about teacher education, so I took the opportunity to give an insider’s point of view. She had some questions for me, as well, about teacher preparation in Nebraska. Former Nebraska governor and senator Bob Kerrey and I spoke together briefly while sharing an elevator at Midland Lutheran College one afternoon. Again, I was able to talk informally with an important decision-maker about my profession. Both Mrs. Orr and Mr. Kerrey were friendly and seemed genuinely interested in what I had to say.
A few summers my friend Jim and I went to play golf at Miracle Hill Golf Course in Omaha. It’s a popular public course and, as usual, the course was busy, so we were paired with another couple of fellows to make a foursome. Neither my friend nor I had any idea who these other two were, even after we all introduced ourselves. We chatted good-naturedly through the first couple of holes, talking mostly about the game and how badly we all played.
At one point, one of our new partners, a very tall, stocky man in his late 40’s who was sporting a long blond ponytail, proceeded to make a phone call. He spoke at length to someone and then discussed the conversation with his partner. Jim and I could tell from what we were overhearing that the two of them had something to do with the entertainment industry, so we asked what they did for a living. We were just making small talk to kill time.
The shorter of the pair, who called himself BoBo, introduced his friend as Trace Adkins, a country-western singer. BoBo was the drummer in his band. Neither of us recognized the singer’s name, so BoBo rattled off the titles of a few of their well-known songs and Jim said that he had heard of some of them.
We enjoyed the rest of our golf game and talked mostly about the game. Afterward Jim and I gave them a ride back to their hotel and Trace was kind enough to autograph some pictures for us. A few weeks later we saw a biography about Trace and his life and discovered that he’s very well known among real Country & Western music fans. Since then, I’ve been a fan myself.
From the White House to the clubhouse, I’m never too surprised anymore where I might run into famous or important people. They lead interesting lives, but they still have to get from one place to another; they need to know that the work they do is appreciated; and they make time to enjoy themselves . . . just like everyone else. We are separated from them merely by circumstance—or happenstance. Sometimes it would be nice if they remembered that.
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