Community Chat

[dancingwoman]

When I was in Catholic grade school Robert Kennedy was   visiting at a factory in our town..it was ALCO American Locomative...not sure why he was there maybe for some union stuff..Must have been 1964 or 65...My brothers and I stood in line to shake his hand..

In 1976 I I met Joe DiMaggo at some type of convention DH and I were at in Montery Ca..it was for Office Equipment..I have no idea why he was there ...I shook his hand too...

Funny the two famous people I've met had connections to Marilyn Monroe...DW

[novamc1]

For 16 years or so, I was a speechwriter, public affairs officer and editor on the staffs of Cabinet officials......from the Nixon years through Bush The First.  I met and was around many well-known people at that time.  When the Presidents made their annual visits to each federal agency, I got to see them and sometimes shake their hands.  Got used to having my handbag searched beforehand by the Secret Service and once got teased by an agent about all the coupons I was carrying in it.

Have also met a fair number of very recognizable athletes (ultra-famous and often seen on TV to this day, even though they are real old dudes now), due to DH having met and played casual sports with them at various times in his life and remaining good friends.

Frankly, none of those people have been as interesting as  some clients I have met in selling real estate, especially the ones working for the super-secret spy agencies, who were always so cagey and evasive about telling where they worked.  (I soon learned to figure it out and just jokingly confronted them about it.)

Recently saw Newt Gingrich waiting at the prescription counter of the local grocery store.  Recognized Richard Cheney's wife, Lynn, and their two granddaughters in the grocery store, mainly by first being able to spot the Secret Service agents who were guarding her--had to look around to see which famous person was being guarded.

Saw Senator Strom Thurmond in the grocery store, following around his very young and beautiful wife, who later divorced him, as I recall.

Of course, that doesn't compare with hitting Thurmond head-on in a swimming pool lane at our fitness club.  It was my fault, hadn't seen him in that lane, almost gave us both a concussion.  He was the consummate politician--bobbed his head right out of the water, smiled, and said "How ya doin'?"

[Sister Golden Hair]

The band "Chicago" came to Springfield and played at a small bar in a nice hotel before they became famous. The band members would visit with all of us and were so down to earth.

[Sunnyfield]

@novamc1

I actually went to school with Sen. Thurmond's wife, Nancy who was a former Miss South Carolina - he was around 40 years older than her and they had four kids!  I don't believe they ever divorced tho'.  One of their daughters was tragically killed in a car accident whe she was quite young.

[novamc1]

@Sunnyfield

Strom's wife was a good friend of an equally beautiful girl who was married (for a while) to  one of my husband's childhood friends.  It sometimes seems like a small world, doesn't it?

[mima]

Kenny Rogers and Richard Simmons.  Also Mary Beth Roe (visited with Mary Beth twice along with her Dad) and Dan Hughes.  BTW, Mary Beth Roe was way tinier than she appears on TV.  She was back then anyway.  It's been quite a few years now.

[momtochloe]

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@novamc1 wrote:

For 16 years or so, I was a speechwriter, public affairs officer and editor on the staffs of Cabinet officials......from the Nixon years through Bush The First.  I met and was around many well-known people at that time.  When the Presidents made their annual visits to each federal agency, I got to see them and sometimes shake their hands.  Got used to having my handbag searched beforehand by the Secret Service and once got teased by an agent about all the coupons I was carrying in it.

Have also met a fair number of very recognizable athletes (ultra-famous and often seen on TV to this day, even though they are real old dudes now), due to DH having met and played casual sports with them at various times in his life and remaining good friends.

Frankly, none of those people have been as interesting as  some clients I have met in selling real estate, especially the ones working for the super-secret spy agencies, who were always so cagey and evasive about telling where they worked.  (I soon learned to figure it out and just jokingly confronted them about it.)

Recently saw Newt Gingrich waiting at the prescription counter of the local grocery store.  Recognized Richard Cheney's wife, Lynn, and their two granddaughters in the grocery store, mainly by first being able to spot the Secret Service agents who were guarding her--had to look around to see which famous person was being guarded.

Saw Senator Strom Thurmond in the grocery store, following around his very young and beautiful wife, who later divorced him, as I recall.

Of course, that doesn't compare with hitting Thurmond head-on in a swimming pool lane at our fitness club.  It was my fault, hadn't seen him in that lane, almost gave us both a concussion.  He was the consummate politician--bobbed his head right out of the water, smiled, and said "How ya doin'?"

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@novamc1 I always admire your posts and imagined you had a wonderful life but now that I know the circles you traveled in I am now officially jealous of your life . . . how beyond interesting it must have been working in the government like that and even meeting/head butting a Senator in a swimming pool . . . tee hee, good for you novamc!

[novamc1]

@momtochloe

Don't be jealous of my life.  By accident of birth, I just grew up and still live in a zip code where all these political cats live within a mile or two. 

As for the government career stint..........it was probably one of the best jobs a person could have, but I walked right out of it with no regrets and no looking back when I got seriously tired of it.  It was highly politically charged, and I was getting burned out writing all that political rhetoric, which would change with each new Presidential Administration (just think of the differences between Reagan politics and Carter politics).

I was not a political appointee.  I was just a civil servant who had the rare "opportunity or fate" to work directly with those cats at a high level of an agency and produce whatever they wanted. 

I did not contribute anything of worth to the taxpayers, believe me, while I was being paid and promoted quite well.  That's one reason I was so ready to leave.

Actually, my best government jobs were during  high school and college summer vacations as a  lowly clerk-typist in the Defense Department and Department of Agriculture. 

THOSE were far more interesting places to learn and watch what was going on in the real world.  I worked for :

--the Army (in a top-secret place in the Pentagon's basement during the Vietnam War)

--the Navy in the office of the Chief of Naval Operations

--the Marine Corps Disciplinary Action Branch (where I saw paperwork detailing all the violence and criminal activity by draftees serving in Vietnam at the time and worked with officers who hunted down AWOL deserters)

--the Agriculture Department's  Food Stamp Division,  and later in  the Agriculture Department's  School Lunch Program.---weird and strange, but interesting,  places!