Richard's Poor Almanac by Richard Thompson for August 30, 2024

Richard was so talented. “Accidentally, she says.”

I was in London less than three days before I saw royalty. As I was passing by St. Paul’s cathedral I saw that a crowd had gathered, and it turned out Prince Philip was inside. After waiting around for about 15 minutes the doors opened, and half a dozen royal pages came out in full livery, followed by some city official wearing his chains of office, and lastly I saw an old man in a dark blue suit. He was escorted to a waiting limousine and was driven away, but not before he spotted me in the crowd and gave me two thumbs up (OK, I made up that last bit).

OK, I had to look up Marlin Fitzwater. But he looks like Karl Rove.

If you live in the DC area (as Richard did and I do), you eventually run into the “High and Mighty” — it’s almost impossible not to.

Several years ago, I saw Wilt Chamberlain cross M Street NW and go into the building where I worked, which also contained the studios of National Public Radio, where he was being interviewed.

Another time, I was walking down the street with my wife, who noticed a familiar-looking woman staring at me as she approached us, accompanied by an elderly man. It was Cokie Roberts, who probably recognized me from the building where we both worked; the older man was fellow journalist Daniel Schorr.

Yet another time, I went to meet my wife for lunch and, seeing her waiting for me across the street in front of a hotel, noticed Jim Nabors walking right past her. My wife didn’t notice him at all, even though he was only a few feet from her. (Jim was in town because his friend Carol Burnett was receiving a Kennedy Center Honor.)

I was once in a DC bookstore, browsing during my lunch hour, when Tony Curtis approached me with his hand out, clearly intending to shake my hand. At the last moment, the woman with him steered him in another direction. Turns out that he was there for a book-signing, which I wasn’t aware of at first.

I, too, saw Sam Donaldson, in a restaurant where my family was celebrating my brother’s graduation from dental school.

I could probably go on, but my anecdotes obviously aren’t as amusing as Richard’s, in part because mine aren’t accompanied by the humorous illustrations…

If you’re unfamiliar with it, check out John Mulaney’s bit about his childhood encounter with Bill Clinton (it’s in his “Comeback Kid” special, but you can also find it as a standalone on Youtube; you can even find it written out, but of course his delivery is half the appeal).

It may be NSFW…

My personal favorite encounter with the ‘high and mighty’ occurred when I was a senior in high school. My friends and I liked to go to airports late at night to watch the planes take off. There were three major airports to choose from — Washingon National Airport (now Reagan National) was way too busy. Dulles Airport was a lonely place out among the dairy farms and cornfield in rural Va (great blue lights, but very few planes used it then.) Friendship Airport (now BWI) was like Baby Bear’s bed—just right. Between DC and Baltimore (a bit closer to Baltimore) Friendship had more planes than Dulles, less than Washington National.

So I was wandering around at Friendship at 2am, trying to locate my friends, when all of a sudden it seemed like everyone in the corridor had gotten taller or I had gotten smaller. (yes, there was an Alice element to this) As more and more tall men appeared around me, I started to panic. And then came the announcement— “Attention Harlem Globetrotters, your plane is boarding now at Gate 11.”