We are the ones we've been waiting for.
So, here we are. It is Tuesday, an afternoon with mom. This Tuesday, we turned our back on the Riverside Restaurant in Bellevue, hoping for a cullinary change. We drove to Bob Evans Restaurant out by the expressway for a little lunch. I opted for three pancakes and two sausage links. . . the jingo, Bob Evans' farm sausage, just right for a Saturday night. . .rattled around in my head. "You know," Ma said, "Bob Evans came to our house for lunch once." You mean there is a real Bob Evans, I asked myself? Indeed. It was the summer of 1961. Dad and Bob had just finished a round of golf, a sales call round of golf. (Bob was into auto parts along with his farming operation in Rio Grande, Ohio.) Golf and lunch. Mom pulled together a store bought smoked turkey; fixed a salad, a baked potato and dessert to go with the libations. Out on the deck, overlooking the golf course from the heights of Mount Parnassus, sat Pa and Bob talking piston rings the way old guys talk out on the front porch. Ma served them. I do not know what was going on with the kids, but we were not in the picture with Bob Evans that day. Children were still to be seen and not heard in 1961. So that was it. That was Bob's visit to our house for a lunch. I do not know if he signed up for any auto parts. But it hardly matters does it? We could have had a sign on that house, "Bob Evans Ate Here," but we didn't.
There were other celebrities, too. Ma came into contact with some others, person to person. Theodore Geisel was Uncle Palmer's next door neighbor. Everybody knows him as Dr. Seuss but in those days, he wasn't very widely known. Palmer took Patty over to the next door neighbors and invited himself to visit. Dr. Seuss showed them around. "He draws his pictures first, tacks them up on a cork board wall and then he writes the poetry next," Ma said. "He was part Indian, you know."
And then there was Aunt Betty's friend Boris Karloff who received Betty and her family for a brief visit in his dressing room. Boris' wife was from Charlotte, just up the road and the rival school to Hastings High in those days. He was playing in Arsenic and Old Lace in the theater in New York when Aunt Betty took them to visit him.
I wondered if Boris was his real name. Or what about Bob Evans? "I think that was his real name," Ma said. And was Jimmy Dean, the other sausage king, really named Jimmy Dean, like on his birth certificate? Celebrity is a realm in which the sheen of reality is so thin, that one wonders about things like names. So many famous people have names that are like billboards, not necessarily what they have on a driver's license. And once we watched Joe E. Brown eat his lunch on the veranda of the Park Place Hotel in Traverse City from eleven stories up. All we saw was really just a speck at the table. I wonder if Joe E. Brown was his name? I doubt it. Sister Susan jumped into the freezing spring waters of Lake Michigan on that same trip. She swam for what seemed forever. Now that is reality for you. Anyone can eat lunch on the veranda of the Park Place Hotel.
Then, there are all those famous folks nearer to the family, Cousin Martha's daughter, Megan Mulally. "She just turned fifty, you know. They had a big party for her in the mountains," That seems a fitting place for a celebrity birthday party. Uncle Palmer says that he once taught Raquel Welch to waterski. "I suppose your Aunt Janet is a celebrity in some circles," Ma went on. Janet writes books. Yup, there are famous people in our family.
What had been a meaty soup now thins out rather quickly. We rack our brains for any other glimpses behind the gauze of celebrity. . . like the time we saw Presient Eisenhower drive by in his limo on the way back to the White House from the airport. . . in Washington D. C. . . . the same trip when your sister got lost and you all got the mumps. . . like the time I greeted Rahm Emmanuel on the street in Washington. He was distracted by his cell phone ringing. By now, the celebrity soup is nearly all water.
What is behind the gauze curtain of celebrity is so interesting because it turns out to be just like us. Isn't that the way things always are? Just like us, except, well, famous. Where I come from, people really talk about these things.
So, here we are. It is Tuesday, an afternoon with mom. This Tuesday, we turned our back on the Riverside Restaurant in Bellevue, hoping for a cullinary change. We drove to Bob Evans Restaurant out by the expressway for a little lunch. I opted for three pancakes and two sausage links. . . the jingo, Bob Evans' farm sausage, just right for a Saturday night. . .rattled around in my head. "You know," Ma said, "Bob Evans came to our house for lunch once." You mean there is a real Bob Evans, I asked myself? Indeed. It was the summer of 1961. Dad and Bob had just finished a round of golf, a sales call round of golf. (Bob was into auto parts along with his farming operation in Rio Grande, Ohio.) Golf and lunch. Mom pulled together a store bought smoked turkey; fixed a salad, a baked potato and dessert to go with the libations. Out on the deck, overlooking the golf course from the heights of Mount Parnassus, sat Pa and Bob talking piston rings the way old guys talk out on the front porch. Ma served them. I do not know what was going on with the kids, but we were not in the picture with Bob Evans that day. Children were still to be seen and not heard in 1961. So that was it. That was Bob's visit to our house for a lunch. I do not know if he signed up for any auto parts. But it hardly matters does it? We could have had a sign on that house, "Bob Evans Ate Here," but we didn't.
There were other celebrities, too. Ma came into contact with some others, person to person. Theodore Geisel was Uncle Palmer's next door neighbor. Everybody knows him as Dr. Seuss but in those days, he wasn't very widely known. Palmer took Patty over to the next door neighbors and invited himself to visit. Dr. Seuss showed them around. "He draws his pictures first, tacks them up on a cork board wall and then he writes the poetry next," Ma said. "He was part Indian, you know."
And then there was Aunt Betty's friend Boris Karloff who received Betty and her family for a brief visit in his dressing room. Boris' wife was from Charlotte, just up the road and the rival school to Hastings High in those days. He was playing in Arsenic and Old Lace in the theater in New York when Aunt Betty took them to visit him.
I wondered if Boris was his real name. Or what about Bob Evans? "I think that was his real name," Ma said. And was Jimmy Dean, the other sausage king, really named Jimmy Dean, like on his birth certificate? Celebrity is a realm in which the sheen of reality is so thin, that one wonders about things like names. So many famous people have names that are like billboards, not necessarily what they have on a driver's license. And once we watched Joe E. Brown eat his lunch on the veranda of the Park Place Hotel in Traverse City from eleven stories up. All we saw was really just a speck at the table. I wonder if Joe E. Brown was his name? I doubt it. Sister Susan jumped into the freezing spring waters of Lake Michigan on that same trip. She swam for what seemed forever. Now that is reality for you. Anyone can eat lunch on the veranda of the Park Place Hotel.
Then, there are all those famous folks nearer to the family, Cousin Martha's daughter, Megan Mulally. "She just turned fifty, you know. They had a big party for her in the mountains," That seems a fitting place for a celebrity birthday party. Uncle Palmer says that he once taught Raquel Welch to waterski. "I suppose your Aunt Janet is a celebrity in some circles," Ma went on. Janet writes books. Yup, there are famous people in our family.
What had been a meaty soup now thins out rather quickly. We rack our brains for any other glimpses behind the gauze of celebrity. . . like the time we saw Presient Eisenhower drive by in his limo on the way back to the White House from the airport. . . in Washington D. C. . . . the same trip when your sister got lost and you all got the mumps. . . like the time I greeted Rahm Emmanuel on the street in Washington. He was distracted by his cell phone ringing. By now, the celebrity soup is nearly all water.
What is behind the gauze curtain of celebrity is so interesting because it turns out to be just like us. Isn't that the way things always are? Just like us, except, well, famous. Where I come from, people really talk about these things.
2 comments:
When I was still living in Chicago, I did some moonlighting working at Barbara's Bookstore on Wells St. in Old Town. John Cusack came in to wander around - Sarah and I looked at each other knowingly. We took great pains to be discreet at Barbara's Books - ever since the unfortunate incident where Kevin Klein went flying out of the store after he was recognized. So we treated John just like anyone else--and I think it bothered him. It was like he kept waiting for us to gush, it was very cute. He asked when we would be getting the new issue in of some movie mag, finally he left. I turned to Sarah and said, "How much you want to bet there's some piece on him in that magazine?" and sure enough there was.
Bear! I think we saw Zazu Pitts in the elevator on that Traverse City trip. She and Mr. Brown were performing somewhere in TC, as I recall. But maybe not. Memories can be fickle. We went to see Cozy Cole play one night at a club in Columbus. And of course, we met John Shuck, John Davidson, and Hal Holbrook before they WERE John Shuck, John Davidson and Hal Holbrook. Ah yes, we've had our 15 seconds of almost fame by being in the same place at the same time as some famous people.
Remember thee marionette shows at Christmas in Columbus? A magic memory for me from days gone by.
Love,
Tudes
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