Brushes with Fame

 Have you ever met anyone famous?  Some of these I didn't get to "meet" per se, just saw them in the same room and didn't have the nerve or chance to talk to them.  Here are my brushes with fame:

Arnold Schwarzenegger

Arnold married into the Kennedy family, and spent time on the Cape in the summer at the Kennedy Compound.  He came into our family's ice cream store multiple times and always ordered rum raisin.  The cone looks so teeny in his hand!!  We had this photo hanging up in the shop with a sign saying "I'll be back."

Cyndi Lauper

Cyndi also came into the ice cream store.  I'm sure a lot of famous people came through our stores over the twenty years, but most went unnoticed.  Cyndi however, stood out!

Bob Vila

When I was a teenager, somehow Bob Vila heard that I was a trustworthy babysitter in Osterville and asked me to babysit his daughter a couple times.  He came to pick me up at the house, and famously mentioned that the brick walkway needed to be fixed.  My dad built custom homes on the Cape, so it was very embarrassing!

Franciszek Gajowniczek

Mr. Gajowniczek, the man that St. Maximillian Kolbe saved, came to our house when I was a teenager and stayed overnight because he was giving a talk at our church.  Hanging around with him felt like hanging around a living saint...surreal.

Pope John Paul II

When I was 16 years old I won a contest to go to New York with fifteen other teens from across the country to see Pope John Paul II during his visit.  We were all supposed to attend his outdoor Mass in Central Park but another guy and I were asked to provide commentary and be interviewed during his mass, and our "compensation prize" was to attend the rosary he said inside St. Patrick's Cathedral later that day.  Ummmm, a much smaller venue with the Pope, yes please!  The guy next to me was able to grab the Pope's hand as he walked down the aisle, and then I grabbed his hand for a second-class Pope touch.  Seeing Pope John Paul in person was life changing, and I got to see him two more times after that.  The next time was during his Wednesday audience at the Vatican on Ash Wednesday with the other 100 Franciscan students who were studying in Austria with me that semester.  The third time was when he said the Easter Vigil Mass in 2000, which Phil and I attended with my parents and sister who had flown over to visit me that semester.  I told Phil our first born son would be named JP and luckily, he was fine with that.

Geena Davis

Geena ate at the same restaurant we were eating at, and I remember that everyone around us seemed to know who she was, but we didn't have a clue :)

Don Sweeney

When I was in 4th grade, my family took a vacation to Disneyworld in Florida, and my parents agreed to get bumped in order to get 8 free tickets to fly somewhere else within the continental US within the next year.  In order to make the best use of those tickets (aka fly to the furthest and most expensive place we could) we went to Disneyland in California for Christmas the next year.  On that flight, we happened to be flying with the Boston Bruins hockey team, and one of their players shared the same last name as us and ended up sitting in a row with my siblings, as if he was part of our Sweeney family.

Matthew Slater

Matthew Slater, a long-time Patriots player, came to speak at our diocesan fundraiser and I managed to interrupt him between the salad and entree course of his dinner to get this awkward photo with him and his signature and was able to tell him how much my boys loved him.

Trey Kennedy

I kinda feel like I discovered Trey, as I have been following his comedy for a long time before he became as popular as he is now.  I definitely went to one of his shows and pretended to be coming out of the bathroom right at the same time he was walking off stage and got this super-awkward photo with him.  I literally squealed and told him that I was his biggest fan. I just cannot keep calm and carry on.

OK your turn!  Who did you meet and how did you act?  Much more professionally than me, I'm sure.