Versatile Blogger Award

Thanks to Suzie Tullett, a fellow writer on our Yahoo Writer's Group who gave my blog the Versatile Blogger Award.



The requirement of the Versatile Blogger Award is that I must reveal seven random facts about myself. Since I've been fairly forthcoming on my blog, I feel like it's going to be a real stretch to come up with seven things I haven't already told my readers. Maybe not many people have read my old posts.

1. My nose is not my original nose. It was broken by a Frisbee flung by a friend in St. Petersburg, Florida, and I had to have surgery to straighten it. While the doctor was straightening it, he took out the Kincer bump in the middle of it.

2. I went to school with Neil Armstrong's son Mark. His mother always made sure we were in the same class because she thought the competition was good for him. I always tried to earn the best grades in class.

3. I never learned how to dive. To this day, as I sit through my kids' swim meets, I don't know how to dive.

4. I used to sing solos at church and take voice lessons.

5. I tried out for a musical in high school only one time. When I didn't get a part, I never tried out again.

6. We lived in four different houses the first year my daughter was born, moving from Florida to Michigan.

7. Once my kids are finished with college, my husband and I plan to move to France to live.

Brush With Fame

My kids love when I tell the story about my brush with fame. They've built it up over the years -- "Didn't you go to prom with Woody Harrelson?"
"No," I'll explain again.
So here's the real story, saved for posterity.
I grew up in Lebanon, Ohio, a small town between Dayton and Cincinnati. And, in spite of the history that Woody grew up in Texas, he went to my high school. He was into theater, but the only show I remember him performing in was Li'l Abner.
Woody is older, my brother's age, and we spoke, but I wouldn't say we were friends.
Now switch focus to a couple at school. Paul and Alice were the kind of couple who dated forever. As a matter of fact, I heard they got married right after high school. Paul was always a guy who flirted with me when Alice wasn't around. One week during my sophomore year, Paul and Alice broke up. The tears from the break up weren't dry when Paul invited me to a party that weekend and I said yes.
He picked me up, I can't remember the kind of car he drove or what I wore, but we went to the party somewhere out in the country.
Everyone was at the party, including Alice.
You can imagine what happened. Paul and Alice got back together at the party, so there I was dumped and rideless. That's where Woody Harrelson stepped in to save me. He offered me a ride home.
I'm not sure why I didn't ask my brother for a ride since he was at the party.
So, I was feeling humiliated about being dumped by my date, and Woody was jovial as he drove me home. We parked in front of my house and talked for awhile.
I don't remember if he was particularly religious, but I do remember his confession that he felt bad, guilty, that he had kissed so many girls in his life. He said he had kissed 71 girls.
I can't remember how I reacted. I was probably awestruck because there weren't that many girls in our small town.
Before I got out of the car, he asked if he could kiss me goodnight.
That's when I laughed and asked if he wanted me to be number 72 on the list of girls he had kissed? He did. So he kissed me goodnight and he gave me his senior picture after he had signed the back: "To number 72."
I wish I knew what I had done with that picture so I could tell you what the rest said. I could even scan it and put it on this blog post, but I don't know where it is.
So here's a picture from his younger days, closer to the Woody that I kissed in his car in front of my house on Ridge Road. The picture is from http://www.triviatribute.com/woodyharrelson.html

As a reporter, I've interviewed Catherine DeNeuve and Al Gore. I even walked behind Ted Kennedy, but I've only been kissed by one person who became a star.
How about you? Do you have a story about a brush with fame?