Wednesday, April 12, 2017

Claim to Fame



I checked in on Going Gently, my favorite blog in the ENTIRE WORLD (and judging by the numbers of comments, the favorite of the entire world) and was intrigued by his topic for today.

 It took me back to junior high school and the United States Senate, two things you ordinarily wouldn’t put together. 
Unless, of course, you intended to use one as a metaphor to explain the behavior of the other.

          But I digress.

          Most of my formative years were in Arlington, Virginia, a stone’s throw from the Capitol. One of the people I became friendly with turned out to be Hubert Humphrey’s niece, whose family connections you would never doubt once you’d met her mother, who looked exactly (and unfortunately) like her famous brother except with more hair.

          Those were heady times (no pun intended). That year D.C. was our playground. We’d go in for the afternoon, ride the private subway under the Capitol building, sit in the family gallery of the Senate and flirt with the page boys down on the floor beneath us.

          The zenith of all this was the day several of us were invited to the Senate dining room where we all met Hubert Humphrey and received signed pictures from him. I’m sure he was kind and friendly to each of us, but my clearest memory from that day is my lemon meringue pie, probably a telling comment, even back then, on my priorities in life.

10 comments:

  1. There is no one in the senate today that compares to the "Happy Warrior".

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  2. Now that IS a cool brush with fame! If only he'd won the presidency instead of Nixon. But then we wouldn't have the suffix "--gate" to append to the end of all our scandals...

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  3. Ha! Lemon meringue pie is hard to forget at any time! :-)

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  4. Great memory. As with all memories they are connected to other incidents.

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  5. I agree. Lemon Meringue Pie on the plate in front of me is infinitely more important than anything else going on.

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  6. I don't think I have ever interacted with anyone famous. Love that you remember the pie - and your tribute to the croc wearing, farting, animal loving, immensely empathic blogger.

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  7. given a choice between remembering a signed picture of a politician and a piece of pie, I think I'd remember the pie too.

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    1. Plus, whereas the picture was lost in one of our moves, I'm sure I'm still carrying that pie on my hips.

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  8. Thanks for the link to Going Gently. Pretty sure I will be back to that one.
    I did like Hubert and voted for him but it was not to be. Interesting that you got to meet his family. What an interesting brush you had with politics and that pie won out.

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  9. He was a heck of a man. One of Minnesotas finest. Here the people that knew him well called him Vodka:)

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