Celebrities

Occasionally we see and get to talk to celebrities. In my life I have seen a few: Mohammad Ali and Art Linkletter - both while picking up missionaries at O'Hare. Yes, I got their autographs. No, I no longer have them. I gave Mohammad Ali's to a young man in our church; I can't find Art Linkletter's.
Yesterday my son, Hans, got to shake hands with President Bush. It was an exciting time for him ~ a real honor. While telling some of my co-workers about it, it brought back the memory of a time when I met Vice President Hubert Humphrey. Back in our college days, my husband and I applied to live in an apartment not far from the University of Minnesota. After 3 days, the apartment manager called us back to say we could move it. I thought it strange that we couldn't rent it right away, but oh well. The day after we moved in, it all made sense: Skip Humphrey, whose given name is Hubert Humphrey III, lived in our building, and his father was the V.P. to Lyndon Johnson.
One day, while in the hallway picking up our mail, I heard a voice in the hallway on the floor above me say, "I'm heading to Michigan and then on to D.C. I'll see you in a couple of weeks." I thought to myself, I'll just hang around the mailboxes a little bit and get to see what this "Skip" guy looks like. What to my surprise, down the stairs came the Vice President! He had no guards around him. He was all alone. I think he was a little surprised to see me too, but said, "Hello. How are you?" All I could say was, "Hello." He passed by me, went out the front door, where several men in suits were standing in the front lawn and near the big, black limousine. I went out on the steps to watch him leave. One of the men opened the back door of the car and asked him if he was going to get in, to which he replied, "No, I think I'll walk today." So the car drove slowly ahead of him and two or three men flanked him as he proceeded the two blocks down the street until they got to Como Avenue. There he got into the car and they drove away.