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

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…