Brushes with Celebrity (of a certain kind)

One of the features of life in DC is that you often run into celebrities -- well that is, celebrities known to those who follow news and politics. There's Dana Bash, anchor of CNN's State of the Union, at the no-frills neighborhood nail salon, Dan Rather perched on a bench outside the Library of Congress, senators going out for coffee or a spin through the beloved independent bookstore, Politics and Prose. Julian Bond used to stroll over to Connecticut Avenue from his unassuming home three blocks away -- no longer with us but forever noted on this sidewalk bench.

But one of the unspoken rules of etiquette is that you let these folks live their lives -- you don't stop and ask for autographs or expect them to engage in a deep discussion of current events. You forgive Al Franken for walking down the street in winter with a Burberry scarf wrapped around his head like a crazed fortune teller (guess he left his hats at home in Minnesota) and you make way for the chief justice and his wife when they crawl over you in the movie theater after the lights have gone down.

Years ago, my mother was visiting from out of town and we went to the playground with my daughter who was only two or three at the time. It was cold and desolate and the only other family there was Senator and one-time presidential candidate George McGovern with his grandchild. Despite my urgings to let the man be, my mom insisted on engaging with him -- I can't remember what she said, perhaps that she was one of the few Georgians who had voted for him in 1972. I cringed but in retrospect, perhaps Sen. McGovern was heartened by the encounter.  Saying thank you for your service is, after all, never considered bad manners.