White Privilege, Part “n”

I could also call this ‘Famous People I Have Laid Eyes On.’

Turns out to be a pretty long list. Guess that’s the White Privilege thingie.

Some are up close and personal, some are just in the audience. A lot of you who get out more than I do will beat this easily. But it is my list, and I’ll tout it my own way.

Shook hands with Barry Goldwater when I was ten. I gave him $120 and change for his 1964 presidential run. At the Union Club in Philadelphia. It didn’t help. He lost.

Also saw Ronald Reagan. This was around 1978. His political career was finished. He’d tried to overturn the Republican Party establishment in 1976 and lost. He was on the rubber chicken circuit. Thought I’d go see him at a fundraiser in Philly. Cost me $10.00. Must have had an inkling anyway. I didn’t have $10.00 to spend on has-been politicians. I was the one near the back of the room, in the cheap seats, wondering why I was eating Chicken á la King in a chain hotel. He was mesmerizing. Truly. Galvanic. No, I didn’t try to get an autograph or shake his hand. I just saw him speak. Thing was, I had watched the first broadcast of ‘The Speech’ in 1964. Never forgot it. Only President of the United States I’ve ever laid eyes on. Even if it was before.

I’ve seen show biz stars too. I saw Sally Starr when I was five. 

Everybody else went to see the new Disney movie “Old Yeller.” But my mother knew Sally Starr was making an appearance at the Bridgeton High School and she gave me the option. Sally had a daily TV show and played Popeye cartoons. I thought she was beautiful. She was. We went. She wore green. I’d only ever seen her in black and white. She was beautiful. All the kids who saw the movie instead had nightmares. Fact. Old Yeller died in the end.

Should I skip ahead? In prep school I saw U.S. Senator William Proxmire telling us why we needed to win the Vietnam War, just a couple years before he became an eloquent opponent of the war, and I was there writing about his principled pro-war Patriotism for the Mercersburg News. Senior year, I went to my cousin’s graduation from Hill School. The commencement speaker was astronaut Frank Borman. What impressed me about the day was the truly idiotic Hill School haircuts, designed to make them look like clowns as they mocked the hair regulations of their stupid school. Borman? Just boring.

Afterwards there was college, more White Privilege I guess. Where this Video trifle came from.

I saw Jack Lemmon, Gloria Steinem, and Julia Child at the Hasty Pudding Society. We were all in black tie. Jack reeled down the aisle, playing(?) drunk, Steinem looked pasty, which didn’t stop my seatmate from standing on his chair and yelling “What a piece of ass” when she passed by. Julia actually made a hasty pudding, which the club president spit out very dramatically. We were a sketch, we Harvard boys. I also saw Jimmy Stewart there, before I was a member (I sneaked in just to see him), close enough to touch, speak to, ask for an autograph, because he was also a Mercersburg boy and he had roomed with my second cousin, once removed, at both Mercersburg and Princeton. I chickened out. He was such a star. I couldn’t bring myself to tap on his turned back. But I saw the greatest movie star ever, in person. Beat that.

I also saw Muhammed Ali in person, At the Harvard Indoor Athletic Building. But we’ve already exhausted Blogger’s length limits. There’s going to have to be a second post on this subject. Who’d-a-thunk-it?