A Night at the Opera

First, I wanted to thank each of you who stopped by to comment on my little desperate plea concerning my blogging problems. I so appreciated it...and especially those of you who took the time to try and explain a possible solution. You guys are the best!
I never figured everything out, but did find out that there is shortcut to all those buttons and what-nots...I had been doing it the hard way beforehand. But I still have so much to learn!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tonight, I just wanted to share a true little story about one of my brushes with fame.
Or... a little more accurately, my husband's brush- literally- with fame.

We were having a whirlwind four-day weekend in fabulous New York City. New York City! You see, my husband was in the Navy, and they were having Fleet Week.
Back then, my newlywed husband's ship went out more often than I could count. Sometimes for just a few days...sometimes for weeks...and sometimes for the torturous long ones that lasted for months on end.

This time, however, he would only be gone a week or so, heading up to NYC, and many of the wives would be flying up from Virginia where we were stationed to join them.
My husband had lived in New York City a short time years before, but this was the first time my own Northwest, suburban feet would be touching the sidewalks of New York. And I was all a flutter!

We booked a hotel, and I flew- as planned- to meet him where we began our big attempt to pack in the whole island of Manhattan into four little days. We saw the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, the Met, ate at countless diners with New York "atmosphere"...and walked for miles to save money rather than hail too many cabs.
(Although the wild cab ride was a tourist attraction in and of itself!)
We had a romantic dinner in Little Italy, passing through Chinatown on tired feet...
and most memorably... we stood atop the World Trade Center.

That was a moment ingrained in my mind...looking down through the plated glass from so high it seemed as if I were in an airplane.
It was a moment I would relive with different clarity and sadness in the days following 911...to know that my husband and I actually stood at the top once before, just four years earlier....

However, during this whirlwind weekend in 1997, there were no known threats. We did everything we could to pack in as much fun and sightseeing as we possible could without crying "Uncle" to exhaustion.
We were able to buy discount tickets through his ship...and another perk of Navy life was that if hubby was in his sailor uniform, we would sometimes be escorted from the back of the long line to the front! Wow...we felt like royalty whenever this happened, let me tell you!

One of the evenings found us in line for seats at the Lincoln Center for a little dose of culture.
It was The Metropolitan Opera...and this time, we stood patiently within one of many very long lines of other cultured and dignified folk. As I was glancing around (ever so casually, mind you... .not like a tourist- really!) my eye caught someone in line that looked very familiar. Was it...could it be? Yes! It was Felix Unger, himself...Mr. Tony Randall, standing in line just like we were- well, in the line next to us, looking so...well, Tony Randall-ish.

Trying so hard not to be uncouth, I whispered to my husband, excitedly,
"Sweetie, you won't believe it! I see Tony Randall over there!" He starts to look around but I admonish,
"No, no! Don't look obvious! Just glance around casually..."
What would he do without me and my decorum, I just don't know...

He spotted him, and agreed excitedly but quietly that it was, indeed, thee Mr. Randall.
Standing with his very sweet, young wife whom I had seen on interviews...yep, here they were- on the town! Just like us! We had really arrived now!

"Why don't you go over and introduce yourself?" my husband teased. Um...no.
But he persisted..."Go on...just tell him you've watched him on the Odd Couple and in all the old movies..."
"No, I'm not going to bother him on his quiet evening out with his wife," I replied with dignity... as I continuously glanced back at our celebrity over and over again.

The next few minutes that followed are a little blurry in my memory. How we got from that point in the conversation to that which followed is still unclear. But minutes later, my normally reserved husband had walked over past the other line for one reason or another...and then just "happened" to cross back right in front of Mr. Randall...and of course he couldn't just barge right in front of him without sticking his hand out and hurriedly introducing himself to such royalty.
That would have been rude. So he did.
And Tony Randall shook his hand graciously right back...although he did look a little bewildered and somewhat relieved when my husband vanished back to my side as quickly as he had appeared. Poor Mr. Randall never knew what had hit him. Some "shake and run" tourist, no doubt.

I have had a few other brushes with celebrities over the course of my life, but this was one of my most memorable...no, not really because of who the celebrity was.
(Some of you under thirty may be even asking who this Tony Randall person is, anyway...)
But mostly because it was all a part of the whole surreal experience... taking in all the sights, sounds and smells of New York City.

And to think...I watched the Metropolitan Opera with Tony Randall and a sailor on leave...that just happened to be the guy I loved.

Stuff that legends- and memories- are made of!