re: Celebrity story you viewed first hand.

While in NYC eating at NOBU, Muhammad Ali and family were sitting next to us. I was able to get a picture with him.

Sat next to Joe Don Baker in a No Limit game at the Belle of BR. Talked with him for hours. He said he mostly quit going out, especially to bars, because there was always some drunk rednecks wanting to test him to see how tough he really was. Said he was just tired of fighting.

Played poker with Stan Humphries of San Diego some months after the Super Bowl with the 49ers. Genuinely nice fellow, very polite, a good sport when he lost a hand. Soon enough, some fellow from Lafayette had to ask him how Steve Young was doing. The whole table went deathly quiet, and soon after he got up and left.

Used to live behind the Drusilla Shopping Center, and after the 85 Bears beat the Patriots, I ran to the store for something. Walking out I saw the tour bus for Alabama come easing into the parking lot. I went over as they were getting out and talked to them a while. Mostly about their songs and the Drusilla Seafood restaurant, said they were tired and hungry. All of them except for the guy with the beard, guess he was slow getting out of bed. Very nice fellows.

As a kid:

Played catch in my backyard with Mickey Mantle for about 20 minutes while him and my pop bullshitted and sipped a few.

Same era, tagged along with dad again and played a round of golf in the Bahamas with Chi Chi Rodriguez.

Still a kid - had lunch with stunt pilot Corky Fornoff (flew the mini jet through the hangar in Octopussy) and listened to some cool stories. He also let me sit in his red Testarossa which I thought was completely badass!

Lunch with Billy Martin.

As an adult - drank for a few hours with Dave Matthews one night when he was filming the remake of Where the Red fern Grows.

I’ve had so many encounters of more than one minute with celebrities of various stature, , it’s hard to remember all of them.

Jerry Reed, country musician and costar of Smokey and the bandit with Burt Reynolds, called our house one night when I was home from college for Christmas break and asked for my dad.
I told him my dad wasn’t home and I asked if I could take a message. He said yes tell him Jerry called and I’ll call him next time I come through. I asked, “Jerry who?”, and he said Jerry Reed. So I wrote the message down and within the hour it dawned on me that voice sounded awfully familiar. So I asked my sister and she said yeah, daddy and Jerry Reed played in one of Daddy’s bands back in the day before any of us were born.

My brother and I took our wives to the Auburn-Florida State national championship game in 2013, along with his daughter and one of her very good friends. The friend was a tall blonde looker. When we were at Venice Beach one morning, Arnold Schwarzenegger pedaled by on his bicycle, followed by two bodyguards. When I told the rest of the group hey I just saw Arnold Schwarzenegger, they all said “well hate we missed him.” So after we finished our tour of all the medical marijuana and T-shirt shops we turned back to go eat lunch with one of my nieces friends who was living in LA at the time. Lo and behold, Arnold Schwarzenegger and his two bodyguards were pedaling north back up the next street as we are about to cross. Arnold damn near wrecked when he saw my nieces friend. My group all looked at me and said, now we believe you saw him.

quote:

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not washing his hands

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Funny you said that.

I was at a business dinner in Bermuda and shortly after we get ther Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta Jones show up. He’s about 5’5 and slow rolls in like the king of Siam. She was all covered up but hot AF.

My buddy goes to the bathroom and two minutes later Douglas gets up and goes too. Douglas comes out and my buddy follows. He sits down and we ask him…did you talk to him? He says no…and then he says “he walked right out of the stall and out the door…he didn’t wash his hands”. We were all like “ Eewwwwww”

Maybe that’s a celebrity thing?

Caught Frank Sutton at the City National Bank grand opening. Maybe 1965? He gave me a little bag of pennies.

The Bruce Willis movie is called In Country. I was born at Western Baptist as well. Bruce bowled alot at Cardinal Lanes while he and Demi were in town. Yeah Rumer was born in Paducah.

Downtown Mayfield is a mix of empty lots and piles of debris. It still looks like hell. It’s gonna take years and years to rebuild the town. Alot of people have moved away to Paducah and Murray. Businesses are hurting hard. Eventually if we get some decent weather, I’ll head into town and take pictures.

I saw David Allan Coe pull up at Murphy’s driving his tour bus with the phrase “Almost Famous” up on the top front where greyhound used to put the destination of the bus. Talked with him for a few minutes when he got off the bus before the show.

I was at a David Duke rally in Bossier City in the early 90’s and saw him mispronounce Bossier.

He came on stage and said “it’s great to be in ‘boss-ee-ay’ city. No wonder he didn’t win the governor’s race.

I got to fly Karl Malone on a B-52. We smoked his cigars and drank his rum afterwards.

Cool guy.