If any of you readers are under 60, you may as well turn to another fabulous article in this remarkable publication because, you see, I’m not sure you’ll recognize many of the names I’ll be naming. Some you’ll get but not all. You see I’ve decided to share a few of the glory moments of my life, the times I have touched greatness. Well, sometimes I didn’t actually touch the greatness, but I came close, so I’m going to just say I did. Here goes:
My dear grandmother JKR of whom I’ve written before was on a constant crusade to save my immortal soul. She believed in starting early, but I forgave her her endless vigilance because she gave me much, and taught me that I had to forgive everything. I never really bought into all that, but she thought I did so that’s what mattered. One time when I was about 12, she decided it might be good for my poor curdled soul for us to go to NYC to hear Billy Graham preach in Madison Square Garden. Off we went for what I knew would be by far the most hideously boring experience of my entire 12 years. And then Rev. G began to speak. There were a kazillion people there and that man looked straight at all of us, individually. Did he, I wondered, have some sort of special eye drops to make his blue eyes so blazingly clear all the way to the top tier where JKR and I sat? It was creepy! But compelling. Those eyes of Billy G’s were like blue steel knives aiming straight at my corrupt, evil soul and I didn’t dare move or itch or snort or cough or even run because I knew those eyeballs would find me, grab me and force me back to my seat.
Anyway, after the holy man finished preaching he admonished “any of us who wished to CTJ to please come forth.” (He never used those initials. That was invented decades later.) Well I’ll tell you; I was up and galloping down those long aisles toward that man like a deranged Tasmanian Devil, JKR beaming happily behind me thinking I was finally on the right path and would oh, at long last, would not be spending any more after-school time in detention in my own personal corner of Principal Zimenkov’s office.
Down, down I went with that stampeding, roaring rapturous crowd, wanting so to touch Rev. Graham, knowing for certain I’d get to heaven if I got to do that. And I actually got to do that! After stumbling and falling I got close enough to shove my young arm through the madding crowd and grasped, very briefly, the rough tweed of his jacket. Sleeve, hem — I didn’t know, but it didn’t matter. I’d touched greatness!
JKR also took me to hear, see and meet the great Kate Smith after one of her radio shows — you remember how she rocked “God Bless America” and “When the Moon Comes Over the Mountain”? Even Ms. Smith’s speaking voice was rich hot chocolate. My grandmother, being extremely pushy when it came to getting her way, and by the way always getting it, forced that good and famous woman to shake my hand and I did and think I may have even curtsied, thrilled that I had again Touched Greatness.
And then there was the time when I was driving down Fifth Avenue in NYC by myself in our old blue station wagon, although I can’t think why, and Danny Kaye (the original Walter Mitty, also the star of Hans Christian Anderson and countless other great films) began to thread his way through the intense traffic. I was stopped at a red light and that man, my most favorite actor/performer ever (maybe not as manic as Robin Williams, but close) a thirty plus year Ambassador of Good Will to UNICEF approached my car, and as I stared and began to shake, that great performer Danny Kaye put his left hand on the blue painted hood of my car to steady himself as he tried to wriggle through that awful traffic, smiled at me briefly through my windshield, made his way across and disappeared into the crowd. I was so transfixed, so frozen rigid I never heard the angry honks behind me and the kindly requests from the gentlemen cabbies as they urged me tenderly to come to and move on. Mr. Kaye wore one of those English Hound’s Tooth plaid hats and a black coat with the collar turned up on his neck and against his red hair. So there again—well I didn’t exactly Touch Greatness, but it touched my car with his gloved hand but it was still Danny Kaye’s hand inside of it.
Once I did make a lunge at my real life hero, Margaret Mead as she walked around the American Museum of Natural History but she fixed me with a death ray and I nervously backed off. She was real Greatness, but as least I got to share her oxygen for a second. I’m thinking that’s as good as touching her. Well, it was for me.
I got to shake hands with Sen. Margaret Chase Smith before and after an interview she’d granted me, and I knew her hand had touched greatnesses from all over the world so I decided that by osmosis I’d gotten to also touch all of the people she’d shaken hands with, people who made history, just as she had.
I flew out to California to attend the 80th birthday party of an old movie star for whom I’d written a biography and got to touch a lot of greatnesses. Lots of old stars were at that dinner for Virginia Mayo and I was introduced and am still frightfully embarrassed that I babbled hubbadahubbadahubba at them even though I’d rehearsed brilliant, unforgettable greetings to all of them while I was on the plane going out there, although none actually came to mind that evening. I shook hands with Esther Williams, Ann Miller, Red Buttons, Margaret O’Brian and other greatnesses. Do you know that movie folk do not look at you when you’re introduced? They look behind you, next to you, over your head, hoping someone of real importance might be back there, someone who could further their careers a whole lot more than a rube nobody from Maine. The next day I got to chat on the phone (OK babble) with the last remaining Andrews sister, Patty, and cute little June Allyson and I’m still trying to copy her wonderful trademark voice. (Screaming for a few hours into a pillow helps.) So my hands that weekend got Touch Greatnesses even though those people were not terribly interested in my joggled handshakes and slobbering remarks, and my ears also Touched Greatness through Virginia’s white Princess telephone.
But on a more local level, I quite nearly Touched Greatness in a way I had absolutely no wish to do. It was many years ago, at the corners of Pleasant Hill and Church Roads in Brunswick. It was summer and I was driving (yes the limit) toward that corner with a stop sign at its end and so of course I stopped. Coming in my direction was one Joan Benoit, running seriously. I waited for her to cross in front of my car which she did, so I pulled out very slowly when Ms. Benoit (Samuelson) quite suddenly changed her direction, turned and began to run straight toward me, her hand lifted up to the front of her face so she could read her black watch which she wore turned to the bottom of her wrist. She did not see me. We were going to collide so I honked. Hard. Imagine, my honking rudely at a woman who’s really Touched Greatness all over the world after she’d won the Olympic marathon run of 1984. She looked up at me in some fright, smiled slightly, managed to not run into me, turned and disappeared down that long road while I sat in my car covered in flop sweat. That is not how I wished to be remembered, that I’d killed the famous and beloved Joan Benoit. So I never got to Touch the Greatness of Joan Benoit Samuelson—but the front of my car nearly did. Doesn’t that count?
LC Van Savage is a Brunswick writer.
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