Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, July 20, 1993 TAG: 9309040341
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Kathleen Wilson
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
(And naturally everyone would know you were talking about Mr. Springsteen.)
CWPF is name-dropping shorthand for ``close, warm, personal friend.'' The '80s version was even expanded to CWPF & RP. (That's ``close, warm, personal friend and running partner.'')
Now that the Clintons have stormed the White House and Harry Thomason - the merchant prince of television - has all but moved his boxers into the dresser drawers of the Lincoln bedroom, there's a new D.C. shorthand.
You know, ``Harry Thomason is an FOB.'' (Don't get nervous. It means he's a friend of Bill - or Billary - whichever you prefer.)
But you don't have to live in D.C. or Manhattan or any other town with a penchant for food with sun-dried tomatoes or pizza with pineapple on it to savor these encounters with greatness.
This who's who babble is a staple of party conversation everywhere, and, I'll admit, one of the things I most look forward to week after week.
I've even started to remember people I meet by the people they claim to know.
For instance:
Frank Kaylor, who chaperoned Floyd County High School's after-prom party, actually went to high school with pop oddity Grace Jones.
Lorain Petersen of Salem went to high school with Meg Ryan in Connecticut. Yep. There she is, in Lorain's high school yearbook. They even worked together at the same grocery store after school.
(``And we both waited on Madge the Palmolive Lady, who lived in our town,'' added Lorain, with yet another name to drop.)
Mark Miller, a history professor at Roanoke College who grew up in North Hollywood, played Little League baseball with the Beaver and Opie. John Ritter, too.
``You want me to keep going? 'Cause there's more,'' he said. ``Let me give you the neighborhood run-down.''
They played ball in Bob Hope's backyard, with Tennessee Ernie Ford's sons, Buck and Brian. ``Jonathan Winters' son was a good friend, too.''
Elmer Ridenhour taught Wayne Newton to play the guitar.
The father of the wife of Mark Layman's - he's this newspaper's night metro editor - best friend Danny in Boston, is a regular writer for ``Murder, She Wrote.''
The more obtuse your relationship with this Somebody, the more entertained I am. And the more interested I am in sitting next to you at the barbecue.
Lawrence Taylor, who threw the pig pickin' pool party last month, called last weekend to see if maybe I'd like to drop by and meet his brother-in-law.
Well, why on earth would I want to do that?
Turns out Lawrence's brother-in-law is the private pilot to a crown prince of Saudi Arabia, who was actually rumored to be coming along for the ride when Lawrence's sister came to town for the Fourth of July.
``If he comes, I've got to run out and buy a lamb,'' concluded Lawrence, figuring the prince probably wouldn't want to partake in the mini-version of the pork pickin' he'd planned.
(Alas, my prince did not come. And it sure wasn't the first time.)
Stories like the one about the Saudi Arabian prince - the ones where you know somebody who knows Somebody - are always my favorites. Here are a couple more:
Emily Brady of Salem tells me that her brother once played tennis with someone who beat someone who beat someone who beat Rod Laver. (I may have one ``beat someone'' too many in there.)
Word got back to me that George Barker of Salem had bought gas just minutes after Jimmy and Rosalyn Carter at the Lakeside Exxon last week.
Turns out, when George bought the gas, a girl who worked there told him that SHE'D sold gas to Jimmy and Rosalyn and Amy and a couple Secret Service agents there a few weeks before. (Never did find out just what the Carters were doing cruising our area.)
I told George it was still a thrill to shake hands with a man who may have used the same pump as a former president.
``Well, then you oughta go find that girl who sold him the gas,'' George encouraged me. `` 'Cause I think she told me she handed him the key to the men's room.''
Finally, when my neighbor Pearl Raz got back from San Francisco last week - and scored big for bringing me some fresh sourdough bread - she told me she'd met someone who was dating Woody Guthrie's son. (Not Arlo, though. Some other son.)
The Pearl-next-door also revealed that she went to John Dewey High School in Brooklyn with Spike Lee.
When I started writing this people came out of the woodwork to tell me their close encounters with celebrities. Ann Mansfield, our Extra section coordinator, once sat next to Gene Wilder in Paris. (``He's actually kind of sexy looking.'') And my ex-husband once spoke to Joey Bishop at a golf tournament while he was interning at a newspaper in Philadelphia. (It's OK. I was totally underwhelmed, too.)
A bunch of people at a party once told me all about the time they got liquored up one Halloween some time ago and decided to go trick-or-treating chez Debbie Reynolds when she lived here.
And once a guy told me his next door neighbor was Penn State football coach Joe Paterno's college roommate from Brown and that Joe even comes to town to visit once a year.
Hey! I live for this stuff.
Why am I telling you all of this? Because somebody in this town knows a Somebody, or a somebody who knows a Somebody. Somewhere in this town, somebody is entertaining a Somebody and - darn it! - I want to be there!
What if the next time Meg Ryan and Dennis Quaid decided to expand the family, she thinks back with great fondness to her days as a supermarket check-out person and says, ``Hey, Dennis! If it's a girl, let's call her Lorain!'' And then the Quaids hop a plane to Salem to introduce the little one to her namesake.
Stranger things have happened, you know. One day, out of the blue, Richard Gere turned up in De Kalb, Ill., with Cindy Crawford and wore her mother's sweats to bed.
It could happen here, too. It has. I mean, Harry Connick Jr. was in Roanoke for his sister's wedding a year or so ago.
Somewhere in this town, there had to have been a FOHC Jr. out there.
Any FO Sting? FO Kevin Costner? Hey, since Nick at Nite brought ``The Partridge Family'' back, I wouldn't mind tracking down a FO David Cassidy.
And if there's someone out there who's a FOJFK Jr. or a FO Robert Redford, get in touch with me.
Pronto!
I sit anxiously awaiting your flood of calls and letters and will share the close - and the not so close - encounters of the celebrity kind in future columns.
by CNB