What famous or important people have you encountered in real life?

By far my biggest encounter was basketball legend Michael Jordan.  I had just finished a round of golf at the Wailea golf course on the Hawaiian island of Maui and was in the pro shop searching for a golf shirt to take home as a reminder of those beautiful 18 holes.  As I was browsing, all noise in the pro shop abruptly stopped as if everyone left at the same time.  As I looked up to see what was going on, Michael casually walked by and headed to the desk to get checked in for his round.  The place stayed quiet until Michael was out the door, then the noise returned, of course, louder than before.   

The second NBA encounter was Larry Bird, another legend, and this one occurred in an airport, Philadelphia probably, but not totally sure.  If you’re not familiar with Larry, he was a 6-foot, 8-inch forward with one of the best shooting touches ever.  When you see him on television he appears to be slim, at least in comparison to the other beefy goliaths trying to guard him near the basket.  Larry has a very distinctive face and when I saw him at the airport I knew it was him.  But what amazed me was how large he was, nothing like the skinny rail I expected.  Larry had wide shoulders, appeared fifty pounds heavier than I ever imagined, and was a real hunk of a man.

During one of our frequent trips to California with IBM, our group of five played Half Moon Bay, a golf course located along the Pacific ocean thirty miles south of San Francisco.  We had to break up into a threesome and a twosome as the course did not permit a group of five to play together.  I went out first in the threesome and my buddy Jim Nicholas went out second in the twosome.  A couple of holes later Jim circled back to me and said they had been paired up with another twosome, which included Jerry Rice, a Pro Football Hall of Famer, and the best wide receiver in NFL history, and a pretty decent golfer.  On the back nine, we noticed that this group behind us now numbered five.  A course ranger came up to us and asked if Jerry was in that group of five, which we told him he was, and they were allowed to continue.  I guess the rules that applied to Jerry were different.  As they played the 18th hole our group watched Jerry, now very comfortable playing with Jim, stand in the middle of the fairway, arms up like he was signaling a touchdown, telling Jim to hit his shot “through the goalposts”, laughing and smiling the entire time.   


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Has anyone ever rescued you, figuratively or literally?

I credit Dr. Zimmer, my long-time chiropractor, for rescuing me from severe pain, one of the two miracles in my life.  During a vacation in California, I threw my back out and spent an agonizing day laying in bed, barely able to roll over.  It was the day before returning home and the next morning things were no better and I realized I could never make it down the stairs, drive the car to the airport or tolerate a four-hour plane ride to Ohio.  As I laid there trying to figure out what to do, I thought about the position Dr. Zimmer sometimes puts me in while adjusting my back, that being laying on my side, bottom leg extended, the top of my foot on the other leg tucked up behind my knee, and turning my shoulders in the opposite direction.  This position forces my lower back to push forward.  I assumed that position and laid there for forty-five minutes.  Then I got up, all pain gone, carried two suitcases down the stairs, drove to the airport, and flew home.  Dr. Zimmer, plus some divi
Read more

Tell me your favorite story about Moses

Moses was the perfect cat.  He was loving, at least to humans, and everyone adored him.  I would take him to appointments at the vet and he would walk down the check-in desk where all the staff would pet him to his delight and there’s.  He never weighed more than eight pounds even though I kept his food dish full all the time.  He ate when he was hungry or when I opened his favorite treat, a can of tuna fish.   Moses was also a fierce hunter.  When I moved into a new apartment, he spent the first couple of days getting rid of every ant and spider he could find.  He could easily jump six feet in the air and I once saw him clear a six-foot fence with graceful ease as some neighborhood dog gave a fruitless chase.  He only had claws on his rear feet, but that combined with his teeth were more than enough to take out his prey.  Combined with remarkable see-in-the-dark abilities, he would routinely disappear for hours and that leads to my favorite story. I rented a house in Kettering for a s
Read more

Share some early memories of your son, Michael

Mike was raised by his grandparents in Pennsylvania until he was school age, so unfortunately I don’t have infant or toddler memories to share.  But from the time I first met him, and still true today, the thing that springs to mind is that he is a happy guy.  As he grew up he developed into a very extroverted, out-going child, loving to ride bikes around the neighborhood with a pack of friends, attend ice cream socials at school, and strapping on skates for organized events at Skateworld of Kettering.  We lived a quarter-mile from Indian Riffle Park and he loved the swings, monkey bars, teeter-totters, and merry-go-rounds. Mike is a very determined person.  When he decided that he wanted to lose weight back in grade school, he controlled his diet, including eating cans and cans of tuna fish, to shed pounds until he was rail thin.  Then he decided to begin lifting weights and went after that with a passion, putting on solid muscle and eventually benching over three hundred pounds in hi
Read more