Meeting Famous People

Never got to meet the Duke

One of the many dreams of my boyhood was to meet John Wayne. How a kid from Milwaukee would ever run into this Hollywood uber-star was beyond me but I recall wishing on a star once about that and probably praying a few times about it, too. It never happened. He died in 1979 and though I was living in Madison by then I was no closer to meeting the Duke than ever. I also dreamed of meeting Jimmy Stewart and while I know someone who actually did meet him – in Chicago, no less – that never happened either. I hear both professed Christian faith and if that's the case, I'm looking forward to meeting them someday. But in 49 years of living none of my childhood friends have grown up to be famous and neither have I had the occasion of meeting someone of fame as well. Except twice.

His friends call him "Wally"

In 2000, Pastor Sam of Chetek Lutheran (since retired) informed the ministerial that best-selling author and radio personality Walter Wangerin, Jr. was coming to Chetek promoting his radio program Lutheran Vespers. For the uninformed, Walter Wangerin, Jr. is a former Lutheran pastor who has authored multiple books including The Book of the Dun Cow (which won both the National Book Award and the New York Times Best Children's Book of the Year in 1980), The Book of Sorrows (which was Dun Cow's sequel) the wonderful series of novelizations of the Bible (The Book of God), the Gospels (Jesus: A Novel) and the New Testament letters (Paul: A Novel) and the collections of his short stories (Ragman and Other Cries of Faith, The Manger is Empty) and children's books (Thistle, Potter). While I don't own all of his works, I have read nearly all of them so to learn that he was coming to our little burb I was understandably elated.

Mr. Wangerin wouldn't be driving to Chetek, however; he would be cycling to our area – as in bicycling. His radio program issued from Indiana and an avid cyclist of the pedal variety he thought he would cycle through the Midwest that summer to raise support for his show and for some reason Chetek was on his itinerary. He would actually be arriving in Cameron where any who wanted to bike with him to Chetek could join him for that 10 mile leisurely ride. Once in Chetek he would give a reading from one of his books (as I recall it was from Paul) and then that night there would be a service at Chetek Lutheran at which he would preach. This was big news to his fans in this community and so I had Linda drop me off at Faith Lutheran on that Saturday as scheduled and waited with about 15 others for Wally (as he likes to be called) to arrive. He showed up in pony tail and biker's physique (i.e., lean and muscular) and after a few words we began our ride south using side roads that mostly ran along Prairie Lake. He was about ten bikers ahead of me and not wanting to be overly star-struck I just enjoyed the thrill of being in this small company.

Later on in the ride, however, he drifted back toward my part of the pack and suddenly I was riding side-by-side with one of my favorite authors. For the half hour before this moment I had been trying to come up with something pithy to say for just this moment but nothing I thought of seemed appropriate. Simply saying, “I really love your books,” sounded too teenage-ish and I had no questions about any of his works (though in retrospect now I might have said something like, “I loved Dun Cow but Sorrows was so...I dunno..sad and depressing.” He might have enjoyed that comment. Or he might have said the obvious: "Well, I did entitle it The Book of Sorrows." I'll never know now.) But I came up empty so swallowing hard I looked at him and said, “How's it going?” That's it. That's all I could think of and the moment I said it I thought, “Stupid! How dumb can you be?”He looked at me and said, “Good.” To wit I said, “Well,...good.” And that was that. After a while he moved on to ride with someone else and my one opportunity to chat amiably with such an accomplished author was blown.

He has a way with people

Upon arriving at Chetek Lutheran, I partook in the reading on the lawn behind Burnham-Ours Funeral Home across the street from the church. It was a small group and he ran it more like a Bible study. It was both enjoyable as well as whetted your spiritual appetite for the Word of God. That night, we took the family, including my mom and dad who were fortunate to be in town that weekend, over to Chetek Lutheran and were agog at his story-telling ability. As much as I love Garrison Keillor, Wangerin is better at delivery in that he is a pastor who shares the gospel skillfully as story making it all the more believable as opposed to a theologian proof-texting a passage of Scripture and reporting on it. At the gathering following the service we approached him in the fellowship hall with our copy of Thistle in our hands asking him to sign it. He did but when I looked at his scribble I turned to him and said, “Gee, I could have had my doctor do that.” He was really taken by Ed because when he asked our seven year old at the time what was his favorite book of his, Ed looked him, raised his right hand with his pointer finger extended and said, Potter (It's a great children's book but it concerns death and dying as well as resurrection however the tone is poignant and sober.)  “Really?” he asked and then proceeded to tell our seven year old how he was turning this book into a play and sharing with him different plot devices he was planning to use. No matter that he had already lost Ed who at that moment seemed to be more interested in the brownie he was eating.

My one brush with fame and it's my little boy who with one word manages to get this well-known author to gush unashamedly about his work.

As seen on TV

This past Black Friday while shopping at Oakwood Mall I met my second famous person. Well, let me clarify. If you don't live in the Eau Claire area, her name will mean nothing to you and if you don't watch TV-13 Sunrise, you probably won't know to whom I refer to either. But she is – or was – a local TV personality and to meet her was serendipitous. Salina Heller used to be the anchor of the two-hour early morning news show that daily preceded the Today Show on NBC. She was funny, perky, relaxed, didn't appear to be too scripted, pretty and was very involved in community theater. Compared to the woman who now hosts the show she was a natural. And then one morning when I turned on TV-13, she and her co-host, Andrew, were off the air. Just like that. No celebratory send-off. No “We wish Salina well as she moves on in her career”-speak. No, the producers just made a change and soon we had the anchorwoman who now hosts the show (too much teeth, too scripted to be natural). In any case, I went to TV-13's website to see if they had announced the change but found nothing. I went to her Facebook page (I am not one of her friends...okay, I did send a friend request once that was, apparently, “quietly ignored”) and that had no information as well. So after a week or so, I decided to message her on Facebook and send her my good wishes for her future career and telling her that I missed seeing her in the early hours of my day. About a month later she wrote me back thanking me for my kind words and that was the end of that.

Until Black Friday. As in last Friday. I was with my daughter, Christine, and my mom standing in Aeropostale at Oakwood and Christine had just gone back to the dressing room to try some things on. I was just standing there, minding my own business, when I looked to my right and who should be standing next to me glancing over a bin of clothes was...she. “Well, Salina Heller. How are you?” It came out of my mouth as if I was greeting an old friend. She looked at me, smiled and said, “Fine.” I then told her, “You don't know me. I'm Jeff and I just want to tell you I miss seeing you on TV.” She seemed sincerely touched by that remark and fearing I had touched a sore spot I quickly added, “Sorry to interrupt your shopping but I just wanted to tell you that.” She thanked me again and asked me where I was from and how my shopping was going to wit I replied, “Oh, I'm not shopping. I'm here for moral support and to drive people around.” She laughed at that and not wanting to take any more of her time I said, “Well, I hope things are going well for you after TV-13 but I sure miss seeing you there” (yeah, I said it three times). At which point she touched me on the arm and said, “Thank you for saying that” and then I wished her well and she continued on with her shopping. I did have my camera with me and for a second I was tempted to take her pic...or even ask if my mom could take a picture of she and I together but thought better of it. I didn't want to creep her out after all. (I did back out of Aeropostale and quickly cross the mall to the store where Linda and Charlie were at and said, “Guess who I just met?” That's about as Bieber as I get.)



Liberal but master storyteller

 

Translated the Bible all by himself

"We'll never forget you, Brent..."

Warren has done Big Top and Refuge

I'm only 49 so there's still time for me to meet some other famous people. I mean Mike Perry comes through the area from time to time and now that I think of it, I did meet Warren Nelson of Big Top Chautauqua fame last Christmas who did a live concert right in our sanctuary. Then again, maybe one of the kids from our fellowship will garner the kind of fame that causes me to say, “I knew them when...” When I think of my bucket-list of people I'd like to meet someday, it isn't that long: Garrison Keillor perhaps (although I'm afraid I'd be just as dumbstruck around him as I was with Wangerin), Eugene H. Peterson of The Message-fame (got a personal post card from him once when he responded to a letter I sent him), and maybe Brett Favre (but what are we going to talk about? John Deere tractors perhaps?) I still regret that I never got to meet The Duke or Jimmy Stewart but maybe if I had I would have been disappointed. I dunno but for the time being I'm just reveling in the fact that I met Salina Heller in Aeropostale and didn't clam up and get that deer-in-the-headlight look. If I had, she definitely would have been creeped out by that.