Grandpa was on Macarthur’s Intellligence team in WWII and again in Korea.
His brother worked at the White House and has his retirement certificate signed by Nixon, Ford, Carter and Reagan.
I worked at the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace back in the late 80s and early 90s. While there I had lunch, drove, watered plants, etc. for many people. The better known ones:
Ed Teller
Milton Friedman
George Schultz
The list of Stanford/Hoover “handshakes” is much longer, but doesn’t fit the idea of a true contact.
Stanford friends who have made it big:
Corey Booker (Mayor of Newark, NJ)
Peter Thiel (Paypal, Facebook)
I worked on a movie with Kirk B.R. Woller (he was lead, I was a very minor actor and technical consultant)
I am “buddies” with a writer on Bones, among other things.
Back before I met kaylasmom (early '70’s), her mother wanted her to cultivate a relationship with the ER doctor who played bass in her nightclub combo, so she told her gf/driver to throw a monkey wrench into any overtures made by the young blind man who was interested in electronics and computer science.
The ER physician is now operating a practice in Texas (and musicianing on the side). The young proto-geek went on to essentially invent the laptop computer.
A very good friend of mine is a fairly close friend of Vaira Freiberga who was president of Latvia for eight years.
You may have heard of James DePriest who is conductor and director of the Oregon Symphony Orchestra and was a HS classmate of mine (Central High of Philadelphia, 202nd class). We knew each other to say hello.
I’ve known pretty well a couple of the top mathematicians of the XXth century and I once had a two hour conversation with one who was arguably the top one: Alexandre Grothendieck.
A good friend of my mother’s was Eddy Fisher’s aunt.
I have an Erdos number of 2. I also met him on a number of occasions and he once asked my wife if our 4 month old child was a boss (female, in Erdos-speak) or a slave. She was a boss.
My son recently met Mayor Bloomberg (of NYC).
My grandson has a Kevin Bacon number of 4 (he acted in play with a girl who is currently in a B’way production with someone who acted in a play with someone who acted in a play with Bacon).
My DIL met Bill Gates.
Oh, I almost forgot. Not only did I meet Sergei Brin, but his thesis advisor assigned him the task of taking me on a tour of SF, which he handled very well. I was also at a talk he gave in which he told of the great idea he had for a better search engine. Both of these in Jan. 1997.
I don’t remember whether I mentioned this. I had met Alan Greenspan . . . which means I’m 2 degrees away from several Presidents, beginning with Nixon.
I’m a seventh cousin of a former president, but that’s a lot of degrees. I’m not going to say the name because he was a Republican.
I’ve met or bumped into several celebrities at various sci fi conventions but the best was Terry Pratchett. We were on the same floor and I kept bumping in to him at that convention, as well as getting his autograph.
My uncle (by marriage, my mother’s sister’s husband) has a sister who’s married to Hugh Geyer, original (and current) tenor of the Vogues, so he’s my aunt’s brother-in-law.
Found out one just a few weeks ago. The kid sitting next to me in my first grade class picture had a fairly prominent but somewhat symbolic job recently (one of his billionaire buddies got it for him). This job meant he had regular contact with one of Obama’s relatives. So I am currently 3 degrees from the current president. Ditto a lot of other famous/rich folk.
BTW: This school was very tiny. A lot of combined classes like 3rd and 4th. Was soon closed down after that due to being too small. So not a big population to draw from. But a remarkable number of kids from it went on to do quite well.
I met Voltaire (Goth-darkwave-folk musician) a few days ago and got a hug. Voltaire gives good hugs. I highly recommend Voltaire hugs to all interested parties.
I also met a few comics industry professionals, like Fred Van Lente and Giuseppe Camuncoli (who is very good-looking and has a sexy accent).
DNR thread yet - have we covered the Erdős number?
My grandpa opened up for Wm. Jennings Bryan on a chautauqua tour, so my Bryan number is 2.
Richard Widmark used to shop in my cousin’s store, so my Widmark number is also 2.
David Sanborn and I chatted one day at our sax repairman’s shop, so my Sanborn number is 1.
I was Leslie Caron’s escort to a formal dinner once, so my Caron number is 1.
Spoke on the phone with Phil Collins
Spoke in person with Bruce Dickinson (Iron Maiden)
Spoke and shook hands with Carlos Morales (Julian Lennon’s guitarist)
Saw Bill Cosby speak at the graduation ceremony for my old college (not my ceremony, unfortunately). I had kickass seats for that (2nd row!)
My parents knew Jack Nicklaus and his then wife Barbara
Not sure if this counts, but Jane Wiedlin (from the GoGo’s) has written to me a couple of times on Twitter.
I forgot this one until yesterday: a friend of mine from high school had a recurring guest role on “Beverly Hills 90210,” and was a love interest for Seth Green’s character on “Buffy: the Vampire Slayer.”
