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Feeling Nostalgic? The archives
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Who is the most interesting person you've ever met?
A man who was in the military in Cuba during the revolution. He worked for Castro. He actually saw Che's amputated hands. He loves to chat about politics and stories from his youth. A close second would be a Holocaust survivor. She spoke powerfully, if briefly, to me about her experience. I am always amazed by the stories people have, if we would just take the time to listen.
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Phil wrote: "It's you guys."Darn. He only thinks the men are interesting.
Time to pack it up ladies.
stacia are you really from tanzania? i am going to be in kenya next month and i'll honk when i go past
most interesting person? hmmmm. i am going to think about this one and report back
Kevin "El Liso Grande" wrote: "stacia are you really from tanzania? i am going to be in kenya next month and i'll honk when i go past"Yes. No. I'm on the TC Map somewhere. Mainly in Colorado I think.
I was an usher taking tickets at the theater showing "The Candidate" when then Senator and Democratic presidential hopeful Hubert Humphrey came in to see the movie flanked by Secret Service guys. I shook his hand. I don't know if that really qualifies as having met him or not?
When I used to work in news, I was stuck spending my weekend at a hotel in downtown Little Rock with my fellow weekend coworkers when it snowed. That particular week/weekend also coincided with an investigation into the plane crash of flight 1420. After we were off work that Friday night and everyone was checked into a room, we hung out in the lobby area of the hotel and mingled - news peeps from all the local stations, some radio people, some newspaper folks, a homeless man who was intent on spreading the good word to us heathens in the bar area, and the people who were relevant to the crash investigation. I had a long interesting chat with the NTSB investigator who was on assignment. We didn't talk about the investigation (I didn't want him to feel that he needed to go back to his room to avoid speaking out of turn) - this was a parameter set early on in the conversation - so much as he shared anecdotes from his experience in his work outside of the investigation.
Betty Friedan, senator Jeanne Shaheen (long before she was governor of NH or senator), Sonia Johnson who was excommunicated from the Mormon Church for supporting and campaigning for the ERA. Lee Haskell who was a VISTA worker helping us form the crises service who had a hysterectomy in her late 20's and died from ovarian cancer in her early fifties.
I met Robert Walden and his wife yesterday. They really are darling. :) They moved to Arkansas where she is the new CEO of the Winthrop Rockefeller Institute & they made the move to here together. They were seeing a show at The Rep.
Félix wrote: "Very cool, Heidi. What was the show?"Ummm... I didn't go? I was just working in the box office?
Félix wrote: "Ah."Oh. Duh. I read your question as "How was the show?" instead of "What was the show?" It was A Loss of Roses by William Inge. Last night's show was the last of the run for this play. Now we're on break until the 2012 season starts.
Félix wrote: "So how was the show?"Dunno
Mrs. Witzig was pretty cool. She was in her 90s when we met, and was the caretaker of our ancestral home in Braunwald, Switzerland. The home is a historical landmark, and she lived in what used to be the barn. My German at the time was good enough to carry on a conversation but she insisted on speaking English because she wanted to keep learning it. She sometimes needed to refer to an enormous German/English dictionary to get exactly the right word.She died about two years later. I always loved her desire to continue learning even when she knew she would live only a short time longer.
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Mostly stories about the town. She grew up there and had a lot of history to tell.
Maybe "met" is the wrong word, but my paternal grandmother was full of stories when I was a kid about what it was like growing up in the Depression. I was enthralled and would make her tell them over and over again. As I got older, she became interesting in a different way; she was very uncommunicative about her own beliefs and experience, so I was always trying to puzzle her out, which was interesting to me as a study of human character.
Michele wrote: "anton levey."Really? Curious about this story...
long one. but I went to his house and met with him and his wife. also had dinner out with him once. my son had met him at SFSU and introduced us. fascinating personality. and very well spoken. great stories.
Michele wrote: "long one. but I went to his house and met with him and his wife. also had dinner out with him once. my son had met him at SFSU and introduced us. fascinating personality. and very well spoken. grea..."Hmmm... I don't know much about him other than a cursory bio/summation that anyone else might know. Neat.
kathy acker. a distant second would be jean-pierre gorin.
mark wrote: "kathy acker. a distant second would be jean-pierre gorin."That's ridiculously cool, Mark.
also met betty friedan. shared a table with her at an awards dinner once.
also had a chance to speak with sonia johnson, the woman excommunicated/shunned by the mormon church for supporting the ERA.
Betty Friedan! cool. although too bad it wasn't both Betty and Anton Lavey at dinner. i would have paid good money to be a guest at a dinner with both of them. hell i would have paid good money to share a cab with both of them.
once met senator Jean Shaheen long before she became 1st governor of NH and later it's senator. She spoke at a women's meeting I was facilitating urging women to run as candidates for local political offices to get women into the political pipeline.
I met Anita Roddick, she was pretty impressive. Best thing she told me was to 'challenge everything'.
Zardoz is in the Tardis wrote: "I met and hugged Sybil Danning."You did not.
i once worked for the sf film society and we hosted a cocktail party for our major donors, including Robin Williams. he had terrible breath and totally dominated conversations with his terrible and terribly constant "jokes". so boring & irritating.
Zardoz is in the Tardis wrote: "I met and hugged Sybil Danning."
Oh, Lord... Curves on that one that just won't quit.
Oh, Lord... Curves on that one that just won't quit.
is Sybil Danning making you writhe? i understand she has that effect on some people.
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I spilled a club soda on Paul Simon. He was very gracious and said he was happy that it wasn't tomato juice.
I "met" Wilt Chamberlain in Las Vegas years ago. I felt like an ant meeting godzilla. He was very nice and had a great smile!
I tripped over tommy heinson of the boston celtics at boston gardens once.
uhhh carol....you "met" wilt chamberlain in las vegas? you do know what his book claim was don't you?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal...
This thread has gone from "interesting people" to "celebrity encounters."Anyone have an interesting person to bring it back around? Or are we next going to hear about how Jennifer Aniston once glanced at kyle's package?
OMG - I had no idea what I was saying!!! Kevin, actually, I was in a small group meeting him (eight people) which is why I wrote "met" in quotes. It was not an actual one-on-one personal meet! I must watch very carefully what I say on this site, as you are all too perceptive!!! And, BTW, he was VERY interesting even though he was a celebrity, Phil. He talked to us for quite some time and had lots to say.
The most interesting non-celebrity person I've ever met was Clyde Barnhard. He was a WWII flying ace, a small plane pilot afterwards, a 5'8" Clark Gable look-alike, a perfect gentleman, a wonderful story-teller, a man with an ever ready joke, a life-time butcher/grocery store owner, my hero uncle, a lover of Paul Harvey, had a great dislike of TV, raised absolutely beautiful flowers, had a small farm and named each one of his sheep and called them by their name and they came running. When I was a little girl he told me stories about Foot, Foot-Foot, and Foot-Foot-Foot and never got them mixed up. He lived until he was 83, was up on the roof of his house fixing a shingle, fell from the ladder on his way down and broke his hip and died from complications. He lived his life to the fullest with a large smile. I LOVED THIS MAN SO MUCH.
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My stepmother and her dad are a close tie - she has the most interesting current anecdotes from 25+ years of covering southern politics as a journalist. Her dad is a retired hotel exec, or as he's been nicknamed, "the Forrest Gump of the hotel industry." He really does have the neatest stories.