The first time was when I met an actual Beatle, Ringo Starr. That was pretty heady stuff for a lifelong Beatle-maniac. I can still recite my entire conversation with him word for word and it happened in 1989. The last time I was impressed by a celebrity occurred in the summer of 2000. I met two of my comedy heroes on the same day; the writer of the funniest movie and stage play of all time, Mel Brooks, and the writer of the funniest television series of all-time, Carl Reiner. They are every bit as funny in real life as they are on the screen, the stage, or the page, and I was truly honored to meet them.
Other than those three people, I’ve been a pretty cynical ho-hum sort of guy when it comes to meeting celebrities. I only mention this to show how out of character it is for me to make a big deal when I meet one. I was more surprised than anyone by my reaction last winter at the Jewel near my house when I had another memorable brush with greatness.
I was grocery shopping with two of my boys, following my usual routine of breaking up fights and castigating unkind comments about the vegetables, when I saw him. He was holding an onion and looking for a plastic baggie. My heart started pitter-pattering and I became so nervous I walked in the other direction to regain my composure.
I didn’t know what to do, but I knew I had to talk to him. I was plotting a way to confront him casually, when I saw him rip a plastic baggie off the plastic roll. That’s when I made my move. Leaving the yelping youngsters near the oranges where they couldn’t do any damage, I strolled up to the baggies to get one for myself.
“I don’t want to embarrass you,” I said, my voice squeaking with fear, “but aren’t you Jose Cardenal?
He looked at me and smiled. “Yes,” he said with his Cuban accent. He offered his hand for a handshake.
“Good ‘Ol #1,” I said, shaking his hand. “I was your biggest fan. We used to sit out in the right field bleachers at Wrigley so we could cheer you.”
“You must have been pretty young,” he said. This wasn’t just a scrappy former ballplayer—he recognized youth when he saw it.
“Well, yes I was,” I said.
I knew he was the first base coach of a team in another city and hadn’t been part of either Chicago team for thirty years, so that led to an obvious question.
“What are you doing in town?” I asked.
“I never sold my house,” he said. “I still spend my off-seasons here. I love it.”
That was pretty much our entire conversation.
My kids, as you might imagine, were less than impressed by our brush with greatness, and not just because I left them by the oranges. They weren’t even impressed when I showed them the Jose Cardenal baseball cards I keep in a shoebox in the basement.I can understand that. They weren’t born yet when Jose played for the Cubs. But I was impressed big-time. Not because I’m a geeky Cubs fan. Not because Jose is such a big celebrity, or because he was so nice, or because he knows a good onion when he sees one. I was most impressed by all of us; the good people of the northwest suburbs of Chicago.
How cool are we?
A Cuban millionaire spends his winters here.
That should be in all of our brochures.
I want to hear more Suburban brushes with greatness. Click on the "e-mail me" link on the right or the "comments" link below this post. I'll collect all of your stories and post them in a later post.If you missed one of the previous Suburban Man columns and would like to check it out, the archives are available at http://suburbanmanarchive.blogspot.com
