Rubbing Elbows...Stepping Feet

While I was at the museum on Saturday, or really any time I am at any art museum, I always have a bit of nostalgia for when I had my first brush with celebrity!

I was sixteen, and gawky at that, and on a school, art-class trip to the MoMA. I was dutifully studying a Chuck Close, focused in my own little world, when someone backed right up into me, stepping on my Achilles tendon and heel! Disrupted and disturbed, I was in the process of turning around, about to go all "New Yorker" on this punk, when I saw who it was and found myself speechless!

He's been claimed to be one of the most attractive men in the lime-light, and having the charisma and charm to match the dashing good looks only made him all the more attractive. And a camera and television can't possibly do him any justice whatsoever. I felt like I found myself in one of those movies when you look upon an angelic face, its beauty is just so overwhelming, there really seems to be a light shining behind their face and you hear music in the background. I kid you not! Maybe it was just the well-place lighting of the museum, but I will never forget that day.

He turned, reached a hand out to steady my elbow, and apologized so profusely for being so engrossed in the art himself, he too forgot where he was. Suddenly, the two of us became surrounded by a horde of what seemed like giants all dressed in black suits, all asking "sir, are you alright?" It was an exciting, and terrifying moment. He replied, "I'm fine, I'm fine. Just making a public fool of myself with this poor girl." Then he flashed me that brilliant white smile!

Four weeks later, I saw a news clip that he, his wife and his sister-in-law had died in a tragic plane crash as they were heading out to Martha's Vineyard for his cousin's wedding.

And all I kept thinking, as I sat with silent tears, was that mine could have been the last foot that John F. Kennedy, Jr. had ever stepped on!