Challenge #44—Almost Famous

Today’s challenge is a fun one…it doesn’t really tell much of your character, but more of a fun experience you may have had!

Who is the most famous person you have met? 
(Or even just seen close up?)

If you are super-star studded and have met many famous people, you can make a list or tell stories.  If you have pictures, be sure to put them with it!  If you have only seen a few famous people, you can go into more detail and tell the story.  If you’ve never met anyone famous, but have seen someone up close, tell the circumstances of the incident.  And if you’ve never seen anyone somewhat famous, you can always tell about the most famous person you know—maybe a local celebrity or someone who is just as awesome as a famous person in your eyes!

And remember, that you don’t have to spend a lot of time on the challenges.  You can do them in as little as 5 minutes by doing a quick write-up, or take up to 3 hours making the perfect scrapbook page or writing a song about it!  It doesn’t matter how you record it!  You don’t even have to do it the same way every time.

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What Laura did:

The first famous person I ever met was someone I didn’t actually know was a famous person.  I was attending a concert with my mom (don’t remember who we saw).  I was definitely in grammar school, but don’t recall what grade I was in.  I sat down, and the person next to me introduced himself to me as Brendan Byrne.  He was the governor of NJ from 1974-1982.  When I was younger, I didn’t have any desire to learn about our past or present history, so I sadly have to say that I didn’t know anything about him.

The next famous person I met was when I was in NY City attending the musical “The Goodbye Girl” starring Martin Short and Bernadette Peters.  After the show, we went to the door of the studio where all the actors leave from.  We were lucky to have been standing right in the pathway of Martin Short.  I was able to get his autograph on the Playbill of the show.

At another show we saw in NY City (“Grease”) in 1994, Maureen McCormick (the Brady Bunch) starred in the show as Rizzo.  We again waited at the actor’s exit door at the end of the show and luckily was able to get her autograph as well.

And, back in 1999, I attended Country Music’s Fan Fair in Nashville, TN.  I was able to meet new and upcoming artists, as well as current popular singers.  I stood in line for over an hour to meet, have my picture taken, and get the group Lone Star’s autograph.  The entire few days I was in Nashville was one of the best events I have ever attended.  If you are a big country music fan, this is an event you should at least attend once in your life.

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What Rachel did:

Coming very soon…please check back to see her completed challenge!

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What I did:

I have never really met anyone famous, so I didn’t want to spend the time making a scrapbook page about it.  Instead I just wrote about a few close encounters.

I feel lucky that I’ve had the opportunity to attend so many Jazz basketball games.  Not that we’ve ever paid for any…salesmen trying to butter up Quinn and get him to buy their products are always the ones who have paid.   We get pretty good seats every time too.  We’ve been as close as the 5th row and probably around the 30th row as the furthest away, plus we’ve been able to be in a suite 4 or 5 times.  It’s pretty awesome—one perk that I definitely don’t mind at all!

Because we’ve been to so many games, I’ve been able to see quite a few famous ballers up close.  (Anyone who’s played for the Jazz in the last 10 years and lots of all-stars from other teams, plus some retired Jazz men who’ve come to games.)  I’d have to try really hard to make a list of who I’ve seen.

But, I do have a few close encounters with some famous players.

The first was really close—when I was like 12 or 13, Karl Malone was doing a promo for a local bank and I stood in line with my family for an hour to get his autograph on a poster.  It was close, but I don’t even remember him looking up at me, which I can see why with thousands of autographs to sign in a few hours time.

The second one was not too long ago.  We’d gone to Rumbi’s for dinner in Draper and when I got to the front of the line, I noticed ex-Jazz Man Thurl Bailey waiting for his food.  Inside I was seriously jumping up and down to be so close to him, but in reality I was scared to even give him a smile.  I completely ignored him (sheesh, what is wrong with me?), but what I really wanted to do was go talk to him about the last Jazz game and what he’d said about it.  (He’s a commentator for the games on TV now.)

The third close encounter was a few years ago.  Quinn had an awards banquet breakfast at the Grand America Hotel (the fanciest hotel in Salt Lake).  As we were walking down the hall, I noticed a really tall man in a suit walking down the hall from us.  He looked over at us just before he turned down another hallway.  I’m sure he was laughing at the startled look on my face when I said to Quinn, “That’s Shaq!”  (He was in town for a game against the Jazz.) Quinn, being the ever-cool man that he is, just smiled and nodded his head at Shaq while I was just bursting and giggling inside.  I had really wished then too that I’d had the guts to just go up to him and get a picture or an autograph or something. 

Yes, I get all star-struck.  Maybe someday I’ll actually get a real picture too…

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Now I challenge you to record about your famous encounter(s)…or lack thereof!

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