1. When I was eight, my father pointed out Henry Winkler in a Florida airport. I bought a postcard and asked him for his autograph. He told me to write my address on the postcard and he would mail it to me. But when I did that, he crumpled it up and put it in his jacket pocket. I was so sad. Then, three weeks later, I got a 3×5 glossy portrait of Winkler in the mail, signed with a personal note. He’s basically my favorite actor now.
2. I saw Jesse jackson at SFO when I was twelve. He’s pretty tall in real life.
3. As I’ve described a number of times on this blog and **, I was once kicked off the elevator by the Secretary of Energy.
4. My wife (and by extension I) was close to the late Nobel Prize Winner Owen Chamberlain and his gracious wife Senta. I got to meet him several times, and even though he was ill with late stage Parkinson’s he could still spin a yarn every so often. My favorite story of his: describing his mother’s reaction when he won the Nobel Prize - a mixture of pride (since he won) and sadness (because he hadn’t become a doctor).
5. I met Rivers Cuomo, the lead singer of Weezer, on the Harvard Yard.
6. Dave Grohl high fived me once (he had to bend down). I’m right at the borderline age where I think of him as the drummer from Nirvana, and the whole Foo Fighters thing is ancillary.
7. Last week, there was a big crowd right outside daycare. There’s a lecture hall right next to the daycare, so I figured a seminar was just dispersing. As I worked my way through the crowd, who should appear in the middle but Paul Krugman, surrounded by sycophants/groupies trying to get a picture with him. I hear he’s a nice columnist but the minor inconvenience will make me hate him forever.
8. When I was a teenager, I got an inside tip that a KTeH pledge drive to purchase the next series of Red Dwarf episodes would feature none other than Craig Charles himself. I signed up with a few friends and volunteered that evening. The result: Craig Charles signed the hat I wore that night.
9. I once saw Robert Reich walking down Euclid Avenue. We would have made eye contact but everyone’s knees were in the way.