A Brush with the Famous

[geodeticman]

thanks again , here to the last two from Char and Bru above. I do appreciate it.
steve

[johnfowles]

I watched the Tony awards yesterday evening and one of the featured previous winners was "Academy Award-winning actress" Patricia Neal. This served as a "reminder" of another of my brushes with the famous.
Just about 6 years ago now Susan and I were extremely fortunate to find ourselves almost inadvertently on a 6-day honeymoon cruise aboard a luxury liner from Southampton to New York that was named after HM
no not the now I see infamous Heather Mills but Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second

the QE2 accompanied by the flight of the RAF's Red Arrows acrobatic display
"Flight with G-BOAG along with the QE2. This occured during the Sunday formation flight at the 1985 Royal international Air Tattoo."
from great series of Red Arrow/Concorde pictures on a Concorde site at
http://www.concordesst.com/history/reds/reds.html
Every day there was some sort of lecture in the theatre and on the Monday we heard an "informal lecture" entitled "As I Am" by Patricia largely explaining how she had overcome a series of massive strokes.
After the lecture we happenned to be walking past a door from the the theatre stage area when she emerged. I was able (very tongue tied) to tell her stumblingly that I too was a stroke survivor

[ June 12, 2006, 11:39: Message edited by: johnfowles ]

[johnfowles]

The main trouble with the internet is that it is all too easy to get sidetracked.
Having posted that wonderful picture of a Concorde with her RAF training plane escort, I thought
I would try to get a picture of the one donated to the Intrepid Museum in New York.(That is an old US Navy aircraft carrier permanently moored on the Hudson just south of where we docked back on July 1 2000
Details of their Concorde exhibit are at:-
http://www.concordetribute.com/intre..._concorde.html
To get a view my favoured route was to locate her using the recently announced
Windows live local service at:-
http://local.live.com/
where you can view much of the United States in 45 degree aerial photos by simply entering a relevant zip code
Having entered the Intrepid's zipcode (10036)
I found this view showing another favo(u)rite aeroplane a (retired) US Air Force Lockheed SR71 Blackbird
(the large black plane to the left of the control tower)

click to see a larger version
with the local live system you can also view adjacent pictures so next I checked the stern of the carrier but this failed to show the Concorde

Nope no Concorde there either at least not on the carrier when this photo was taken.
Instead of giving up my quest, I googled some more and found
http://www.concordetribute.com/intre..._concorde.html
where I read:-
"She will initially go on display alongside the carrier, but preliminary plans have been mooted that will see her eventually on display on the quayside in a special glass built building to protect her from the elements of the Atlantic Ocean"
Ok so where is she now??
an image search revealed this picture clearly showing both my plane and the carrier apparently in close proximity

back to the neighbouring pix on local.live and I finally found her

and a litte larger

note that these pictures are obviously "before" and "after"
That local.live site is something else I have some great shots of our house
in New Jersey showing views looking North East and West including our swimming pool
in a screenshot of my mother-in-law's house you can even see that her car is dark grey
and roughly in the middle of this picture is our favo(u)rite local restaurant
The Star Of India in Kenilworth NJ

(the building on the corner near a row of 4 parked black cars, where we park if lucky or else in the carpark up the road a bit (where you can see a largish white vehicle))
John Fowles
Ain't life wunnerful???

[ June 12, 2006, 11:56: Message edited by: johnfowles ]

[MistyMoppens]

I don't know how I forgot about this other "brush with the famous." I guess because I don't think of her that way anymore now that I've gotten to know her.

It's a controversial person so I won't mention her name. She's been the subject of many TV documentaries. It seems like her story runs every few weeks... I originally contacted her to see if there was anything we could possibly do for her. She's not a serial killer or a member of the Manson Family or anything. lol.. (far from it) Someone else at the website knows about this and is probably relieved I'm not naming names..

[Borderstone]

I mentioned this in another topic but in 1982/83 I met famed D.J. Wolfman Jack at an opening of a store near our home (in a Safeway plaza).

He was braodcasting on 94.5 Kool-FM from there and one thing I recall him saying to the assembled audience was,"You all remember the song "Running Bear"? ... "Well,that's what we'll do in the parking lot after the show! :D

He autographed & personalized a picutre for me that I still have.

I even got on the local news that day!

I was so sad when passed away in 1995.