pity the fils

Sharing a meal with a vegetarian friend of ours usually means we'll be eating at one of three places: Trio Café, Panera Bread or Ruby Tuesday. On Friday night, my wife, our son and I met our friend at Ruby Tuesday in the mall for the salad bar.

During dinner I told him that I had talked about him on the radio recently. He had backstage passes to a Gavin Rossdale performance but didn't know much about him. When he met the singer, all he could think to ask was, "so, you're married to Gloria Estefan?" Brush with greatness fail. (FYI: Rossdale is married to Gwen Stefani.)

We talked about a couple of celebrity encounters from my past including the Donny Osmond "don't you wish you were me" story. My wife remembered the 7-Eleven shopping sprees I used to do at WAVA. After a celebrity was on the air with Don & Mike, I would escort them across Lee Highway to 7-Eleven. I used the phone behind the counter to provide on-air play-by-play as the celebrity grabbed as much stuff as he or she could in 30 seconds. It's hard to remember all the stars who made the walk with me. Mr. T came to mind because I still have a picture of him walking back to the radio station. I spent the better part of an hour looking for it in a stack of photo albums in the basement.



The series of anecdotes prompted my son to point out that I have never told him many of my old tales. They just don't come up in our normal conversations. It's as if I need to be prompted to remember them. I wonder if any of you former WAVA or KROQ or KLOS listeners can suggest some stories my son would enjoy.