Brush with fame - literally

Do you remember the TV show Happy Days? It's okay if you don't, I'm a little young to remember myself. Happy Days was on the air from 1974-1984 and featured Henry Winkler as Fonzie or "The Fonz." The show revolved around a family in the '50's with The Fonz as the epitome of cool. Considering it was on for 10 years, I guess you could say it was a big hit.

So what's the point? Well Happy Days was supposed to be set in Milwaukee, the town I currently call home. Well on Monday I was boarding a plane in LAX heading back to Milwaukee. And who's taking up the first three rows? Most of the major players of Happy Days, including The Fonz. My fiance, Colin, at nine years my senior, found this to be a much more significant encounter than I. He grew up with Happy Days. I was faced with a celebrity. Should I exclaim loudly, OMG, you're Fonzie!? No, that didn't seem right. Should I nonchalantly say hello, like he's not some celebrity? No, that somehow seemed disrespectful, because he is a celebrity. So I just walked by and took my seat. No reaction, no acknowledgement that I'd just walked past Henry Winkler.

Here I was at a moment I'd always dreamed about. Not walking past Henry Winkler per se, because, well Henry Winkler doesn't really register on my radar, (No offense, Fonz, but you're just a little too soon before my time to get my motor running) but what I'm talking about is meeting a celebrity.

I've always hoped that when I actually met a celebrity I'd say the perfect thing. Something clever and witty to make me standout. Something that would make the celebrity want to discover me, or befriend me, or write a song about me. I know, this is not reality, but you never know. Why couldn't I make such an impact on someone? Well for starters, I'd actually have to say something, but I always clam up and discover myself at a loss for words. As a writer, I should never be at a loss for words. The same thing happened when I met Chip Foose. I thought, here's my chance, I'm meeting one of the great masterminds of automotive design, say something memorable. So what did I go with..."Hi, it's so nice to meet you Mr. Foose." That's all, well that witty repartee paired with the deer in the headlights gaze.

So as I sat in my seat, I kicked myself for missing a second opportunity to at least make a celebrity laugh, if not make a lasting impression. And I vowed next time I would do better. And next time came much sooner than anticipated. When we landed in Milwaukee, there was one of two baggage carousels our luggage was going to come up on, but we didn't know which carousel it would be. So we took our place in line by carousel and waited. When the luggage didn't come within a few minutes Colin said he'd wait by this one and I could go check the other. Good plan. So as I'm navigating through the sea of other passengers awaiting their luggage, BAM, someone runs into my left side. I turn to say "Excuse me," and no shit if it isn't Henry Winkler. This is the opportunity I was waiting for. Here was my chance. Not only did he run into me, but I had him as my captive audience. I would not mess this up. So he says, "Oh, it's nice to run into you." And I, say, "I'm sorry, excuse me."

That's it. Dang it, Cana, you can do better. In fact, I have done better. Remind me to tell the story about Mario Andretti and his bottle of wine sometime.