Although, considering where I live, I should restate that to Local Celebrity Nerd. The closest I ever came to seeing a real, honest-to-god star was when I went to California in 1986 with my friend Ingrid. Every summer her parents did something mind-expanding with their kids. They went to the �84 Olympics in LA, took them to Holland to introduce them to their relatives, and this particular summer was all about renting an RV and exploring North America. We took in 15 states, 3 provinces and Expo �86 over the course of three weeks.

The best thing about it all was my age. Nineteen is a good age to set out an a voyage of such epic proportion. It sounds much better when I say it that way, as opposed to saying I was trapped in an aging RV with seven other people for 21 days. There were no working facilities and two of the passengers were Ingrid�s twin eight-year-old brothers. They are adopted, which only serves to strengthen my argument that they are, indeed, Demon Spawn.

Ingrid�s Dad, Henk, told us outright before we even left the laneway, the only reason he would stop the vehicle for anything other than something that had been previously arranged was if a body flew out the window. This meant I lost two cards from my only deck, a sock and one of the novels I took along to read during those agonizing days with no stops. Fifteen years later, the odd story gets back to me about the trouble those two continue to cause. I still say they�re lucky they continue to draw breath after that trip.

Anyhow. California.

We were getting some great cardio exercise touring San Francisco one sunny day, when someone decided it was time to eat. We looked waaaay up the hill we were on and spied The Green Valley restaurant. That apparently worked for the majority of us, and as you well know, majority rules with a traveling group of our size. As we drew nearer, it became plain that eating there would not be possible: they were shooting a movie. We befriended a cop extra and he told us the movie was going to be called Burglar and would star Whoopi Goldberg. He also told us, after we stoked his ego by asking for his autograph, if we hung around for another five or ten minutes, she would come out the front door of the restaurant. Like the good little tourists we were, we stood. And stood. And stood. Just as we were feeling like that guy was in a trailer somewhere laughing his ass off at us, there she was.

It was 110 degrees in the shade, and she was wearing a black leather jacket, black leather pants and bright yellow Reeboks. A crowd began to gather. The nice cop extra showed up and indicated that we had been waiting for a possible autograph and did she have some time before the next shot? She said yes and motioned for us to come on over. I was beside myself. Next to meeting Robin Williams, Whoopi was �it� as far as getting to shake the hand of a great comic. Well, in 1986 she was anyway.

I felt a rather large hand on my shoulder just then, shaking me out of my trance. Some security dude told me she was out of time, and we would have to step behind the line. No autograph, but a story that I still tell to this day. Obviously.

All this comes out of the fact that I was shopping today directly in front of a local television personality. I happen to know one of the weekend anchors from the same station, Steph, but I�ve never asked her how she feels about being approached by the viewing public. I suppose I�ve always figured they are just the same as actors: total hams. Hey, if you didn�t want to be �known�, you wouldn�t put your face out there day after day, right?

Anyway, in the end I opted to respect her free time. All I really wanted to do was tell her how much I liked seeing her do remotes each morning. Maybe ask her if she enjoys her work, or if she covets the anchor desk.

Come to think of it, I don�t know if Steph would want to hear the answer to that question :)

Posted at 6:27 p.m.