My father was 21,000 yards south of the Yalu River (forms the border of China and North Korea), and then survived the longest retreat of the US Army. I knew a Pearl Harbor survivor that was an Arizona crew member, met Richard Ira Bong (America’s biggest ace in WW2), personally mowed the lawn of the brother of Admiral Zumalt for many years. met other aces, and I’m embarrassed to say have forgotten a ton of others.
Grew up in Northern California so personally knew many Japanese that were interned in Tule Lake.
Working in college radio for 5 years brings you in contact with tons of famous people that are doing the lecture circuit, performing, trying to raise money/awareness for a cause.
At certain levels in business, you also get to meet/be in meetings with CEO’s, and then a lot of interaction with their people 1, 2 or 3 levels down. I’m ex Microsoft, so have met and/or been in meetings with Bill, Steve and Satya at different times.
My grandfather worked for one of Spiro Agnew’s campaigns – probably when he was running for governor. He says that one day, he was in his office when Agnew unexpectedly walked in, deposited a brown paper bag on his desk, and left without explanation.
He looked in the bag, and it was full of money! For the rest of the day, various people kept coming in, taking money out of the bag, and walking out.
I’ve known a man who jumped in with the 101st on D day and one who waded ashore, the same day. plus another guy who did body recovery on the beaches a couple of days later lovely gentlemen, all of them., though not without their problems.
I’v known a survivor of the Bataan death march and 2 from the Frozen Choisen, in Korea, also lovely gentlemen.
A dear friend of mine was Neil Young’ s girlfriend and was at Woodstock with him.
Another friend was the police liaison for Elvis on 2 occasions.
A very minor one. I flew on a DC-10 the first day after they started flying again after being grounded because of that accident in Chicago. You now, the one where an entire engine came off on takeoff and everybody was killed.
I remember this primarily because all the passengers clapped after we landed all in one piece.
An uncle of mine was at Normandy the second day. He was in a tank unit and went all over Europe. A nice, gentle guy, he was a printer after the war. I never once heard him speak of the war, only finding out about his service after his death.
As my husband cradled his dying father, he thought it very sobering indeed that here was a man, who knew a man, who was present as Thomas Jefferson lay on his deathbed. My FIL’s great-grandfather(who we believe lived to be 99yo) was a child when taken to Monticello to visit Jefferson, but not because Jefferson was known to be dying. Tinkers to Evers to Chance, s’il vous plait.
Andersonville was a notorious prison camp of the Confederates during the American Civil War. While my grandmother was alive I could say I knew a person who had known a person who was in Andersonville. It was her own grandfather, my great-great-grandfather that would be. Things were so bad there that the commandant of the camp was the only person the Union executed for war crimes after the war’s end.
A prisoner of the Germans, or a German prisoner of the Americans?
I was wondering because my grandfather’s brothers had German soldiers, POW’s of the Americans, do farm work for them during WWII, here in Kansas. I’m told those guys were happy to be out of the fighting, and a couple wanted to come back when the war would have been over. My great uncles could speak German to them which is one of the reasons they got the labor.
I delivered a phone book to the front porch of the house where Ameila Earhart grew up.
Oh, wait, my dad’s family was already settled in Hannibal before Mark Twain’s parents even moved there. So an ancestor of mine might have been the Welcome Wagon lady for Mark Twain’s mom, beginning Sam’s Life on the Mississippi…
My great-great grandfather, of the Second New York Heavy Artillery, died in Andersonville of scurvy a few months after being captured at Petersburg. It was ironic because he was a refugee from the Great Famine in Ireland in the 1840s. My grandmother was born long after he died, however. She did know her grandmother, his widow.
Another great-great grandfather, of the Twenty-fifth New York Cavalry, served in the Shenandoah Valley at the same time as George Armstrong Custer. I sometimes wonder if he ever encountered him.
A friend of mine’s father used to drive around a town in south Georgia, USA, with a P.O.W. license plate. He was a German prisoner of the Russian army in WWII.
A rock and roll drummer of some note was mentioned in the Rolling Stone Album Guide as missing a gig because she was having a baby. I later taught that kid high school biology.
I went to Elementary school with the daughter of Dick Rutan. She never talked about airplanes or her father, but I wasn’t a particular friend of hers.
I used to babysit the son of a space shuttle pilot, Carl Meade. I even have a personally autographed picture of him, as well as his mission patches and stuff.
It helped to grow up near an air force base that had lots of stuff like this happen at it. For all I know I met several other famous aerospace people but didn’t know who they were.
Big history: My wife’s grandmother was murdered in Dachau and her mother fled Austria to NYC a week before the Nazis marched into Vienna.
My gr-gr-gr-gr-grandpa was John Howland, the guy who fell overboard the Mayflower and was rescued (klutziness runs in my family). As I’ve found out on the board in another thread, many of us appear to be cousins through Howland.
Trivial celebrity history: I played catch football with Joe Theisman (he was a guest at a corporate event I planned – nice guy). I met Garth Brooks and the Michael guy in the Doobie Brothers in same type of situations.
As posted before in Kevin Bacon threads on the Dope: The original Footloose was filmed at my high school and I hung out with Bacon and SJ Parker before they were stars; I’m also an extra in a few scenes.
Dorkier history: have chatted with Joyce Carol Oates, had a correspondence with Annie Proulx, and cavorted with lesser-known academicians/authors (as in: towering folk in literary studies, known by 2.5 people in the real world).
