When I was 13, my Republican “uncle” Gabe took me to see my hero, Ronald Reagan and Bob Dole at a charity fund raiser/campaign for Ford speech at the Sheraton Park Plaza in New Haven, CT. WHen Reagan was done speaking and was slipping out, Uncle Gabe grabbed my hand and took me out an exit past Secret Service and I got Bob Dole’s and RONALD REAGAN’s autographs. They hang on me wall today.
I got to see Pat Buchanan, Ford’s son Jack, and Newt Gingrich at campaign events.
I spent an hour interviewing Joe Scheidler for a school newspaper.
I had a fund-raising dinner with Contra leader Aldolfo Calero for the same paper.
Coca-Cola CEO (and perp of New Coke) Roberto Goizueta gave my high school valedictory (it was conservative! He was from Cuba.).
I went to a small fund-raier headlined by Phyllis Schlafley.
The Wanderer Forum featured Joe Sobran and Bob Dornan.
My church sponsored the great theologian/canonist Peter Kwasnieski.
The great Fr. Vincent Miceli taught my Moral Theology course at Christendom College.
Professor Fajida (sp?) (#1 tornado expert) taught my hard science core course one quarter at U of Chicago.
My favorite old rock musician, Del Shannon, came to my home town of Wallingford, CT to perform at Oakdale as the opening act for Dion (after Del left, I scooted out, talked to him, and got his autograph).
I saw Bush the Elder and Frankie Avalon at a large campaign rally in ‘84 outside Chicago.
John Sculley (CEO of Apple at the time) waved to me when he entered the front door at an educational IT conference in Rochester.
Mike Dukakis was escorted in by the Knights of Columbus, in Springfield, Mass. when he was governor for some church event. Yuck.
My partner and I went against (now Sen.)Chris Coons and some very short guy from the Amherst team at the Yale Parliamentary debate tournament. Thanks to my partner Tasso Kaper, who beat Coons by one point, we won, and kept them out of the finals. I tied the short guy, so I held up my end. We all scored really well. My team had to defend the Japanese internment in WW II.
That’s all I can recall for now.
Oh. I forgot one of my best ones. I used get a car pool ride to school from Florence Gooding. One day, she her husband picked me up instead, saying Mrs. Gooding was ill. She showed up months later on “America’s Most Wanted” for taking deposits on houses as a realtor, and then setting them on fire to buy time. She was also racially ambiguous and always used it to her advantage (black, American Indian, Hispanic). Very sociable, though, but told tall tales even to me (10th grader).