Rubbing elbows with the rich and famous

To some degree or another, all of us are prone to become at least a bit enamored with the rich and famous in this world. And if we ever get to meet such people in person, many of us downright lose our minds.

It’s actually no shame to do so. At least, up to a point. It appears to me to be a very basic part of our humanity, to fawn a bit over the rich and famous. Being the very social, immensely tribal beings that we are, we all tend to “pay more attention” to people who are rich and famous. It’s not just a cultural thing with us humans, it may very well be part of our genetic DNA, as well. Our brains seem to crave it. We are all quick to recognize the rich and famous among us, whether we realize it or not.

I’ll begin with highlighting a few culturally recognized rich and famous people whom I have personally met - then finish with a couple of souls who may appear to be far from being either rich or famous, at least at first glance. By the time the reader reaches the last line of this particular column, my hopes are that we would all become a bit more aware of the ways virtually every soul we ever meet might be deemed as “rich and famous”, in some meaningful and memorable way.

If we will learn to look for such things, we may even find ourselves discovering the “rich and famous” in everyone we meet.

Michael Jordan: I previously wrote about my encounter with MJ in a Charlotte hotel. We happened to take the same elevator together, along with an elderly veteran in a wheel chair and his wife. I followed along as MJ volunteered to push the elderly veteran to his room. It was easy to tell that neither the veteran nor his wife had the faintest idea under heaven that the most recognizable athlete in the entire world at that time was helping them to their room.

I told MJ that I liked what I saw him do by aiding this man. I told him it was even better than watching his six NBA championships. I shook his hand, then he gave me his famous wink and turned on down the hall.

President Barack Obama: I also wrote previously about my meeting with the President of the United States in the Oval Office at the White House (as part of my induction into the National Teachers Hall of Fame). The first thing he told me was, “Man, I love your hat!” Then he asked me where I was from. “Bristol,” I proudly replied. “Ah, Bristol,” he said. “Where I gave my first campaign speech - and it wasn’t very good.” I leaned forward and said, “Sir, it wouldn’t have mattered. Most people in Bristol were not gonna vote for you anyway.” This gracious man laughed long and hard.

I knew that President Obama loved golf, so I leaned forward again and whispered to him, “Say, have you ever hit a golf ball into the White House pond?” He laughed hard again and replied, “No, but I might tonight!” The president seemed to be quite happy that I was not being so formal as most who meet him. He also added, “I love to hear you talk.”

Tom Watson: I was once blessed to play a round of golf with one of the greatest golfers who ever lived. This man affectionately called me “Hillbilly”, no doubt due to the hat I wore and the dialect with which I spoke. I was only 17 when we teed it up together at the Eisenhower Air Force Academy Golf Course in Colorado in the summer of ‘75.

Just like President Obama, Tom also remarked to me that he “loved to hear” me talk. Of course, it was my dialect. That and the fact that “my Appalachian people” often “talk” in colorful stories.

I don’t even know this man’s name: I only talked with him for thirty seconds, at most. He was a homeless old man I once met on a street corner in Myrtle Beach one night back in the summer of ‘76. I was trying to call home to tell my family I had arrived safely and was doing fine. I had already set up my tent in the campground. But by the time I found a pay phone booth (yes, they really had those back then) I had lost the dime I had in my pocket (the cost to begin a call - even if you were calling collect, as was I).

This man was standing idly by and saw me digging in my pockets. He walked toward me with his palm open. “It’s actually my last dime,” he told me. “But if you are making a call this late at night, it must be really important to you.” At first I adamantly refused. Then I looked into his eyes. His eyes spoke a novel to me in an instant.

So I gratefully accepted all the money this man said he had left in this world. In my mind he was at that moment as rich and famous as anyone I could hope to meet. I didn’t fully appreciate it enough at the time, but over the decades since I have sought to “pay forward” his immense act of simple kindness.

Grave Digger: I am confident in stating that virtually no one will know of Grave Digger. This was the “street name” of an inmate from Eastern Virginia whom I taught at the Bristol Jail. In his inner city world of street gangs this man was both rich and famous. Digger was prosecutor, defender, judge, and jury in his world. He conducted his own justice system in a way that few who read these words will fully understand. “I only bring pain to those that deserve it,” he told me once. “I eliminate people who sell drugs to kids. Or drive-by shooters. They be cowards. And whenever we gets any extra goods, Mr. T., we drops it off to the poor. Nobody akses us no questions.”

Digger was rumored to have killed more than a few men over the years in his various street gang encounters. However, this man loved coming to my informal Bible study class in the jail library. He never missed. This man, who had been abused, tortured, and beaten throughout his childhood, was ultimately sentenced to sixty years in prison. The last time I saw him he gave me a verified gang-style “brother hug”. Perhaps Digger’s most striking and memorable remark to me was this -