A Brief and Foolish Fling With Power, Self-Importance

Like many people my age, when life seems its most despairing I turn for comfort to the words of the 2nd Earl of Rochester.

It was the 2nd Earl, a courtier in the 17th-Century throne room of Charles II of England, who once wrote:

“There’s not a thing on Earth that I can name/

So foolish, so false as common fame.”

Even if I didn’t have that verse inscribed in a locket that I keep under my pillow, the words would have reverberated in my head Monday night while watching the Academy Awards and seeing all those people accept their Oscars.

Oh, just listen to them talk about courage and vision and truth. They don’t care about any of that stuff.

They just want to be famous.

If they were honest, they’d all give the same acceptance speech:

“For those of you who think I was a jerk before, just wait till you see me in action now.”

God, I’d love to be famous. Just one stinkin’ Oscar, that’s all I want.

I’ve never polled other journalists, but somewhere in the recesses of our psyches we must have gotten into the business out of a desire for fame. I remember an early mentor telling me that working for a newspaper meant getting a front-row seat to watch history. He then sent me out to cover a special little slice of history--the five-hour meeting of the Hall County (Neb.) supervisors serving in their dual capacity as regional airport commissioners.

So, you get over the fame thing pretty quickly in the news business.

However, I got a brush with the real thing once, a whiff of the power and adulation that famous people must experience every day. It happened in September of 1983 in Pittsburgh, where I had gone to see the Pirates, my favorite team, play in a crucial series near the end of the season.

Although in my early 30s at the time, I often exhibited retarded developmental traits that made me act like a 10-year-old. One of those traits was a desire to be near Pirate players when they came out of the locker room after the game, so I could say, “Hey, nice game,” and they could say, “Thanks.”

After one of the night games, I had positioned myself near the players’ exit and was hanging around with a group of about a dozen or so fourth-graders when one of the kids came over and thrust a program and pen at me and said, “Can I have your autograph?”

In the darkness, the kid had mistaken me for a player. It took a few jumbled seconds for me to realize how it had happened: I was wearing the black team jacket that I’d borrowed from my brother. Because the Pirates’ jackets also were black and probably because I was the only adult standing around among the kids, the little towhead logically thought I was a Pirate.

I also assumed that he saw the lettering on the jacket, but because of the darkness, he probably didn’t see it that clearly. Had he examined it closely, he would have discovered that my brother didn’t play for the Pittsburgh Pirates but, and God bless alliteration, he did play for Pettit’s Pastries of Omaha.

So the kid comes over, wanting the autograph. Now, is my reaction, ‘Sorry, son, I’m not a player”?

Not on your life. Never occurred to me. Instead, my starving-for-adulation self says, “Who do you think I am?”

I was stalling, because on such short notice I couldn’t think of any white players on the Pirate roster. The kid was young, and it was dark, but I could hardly see him falling for me passing myself as Cecilio Guante.

The kid couldn’t think any faster than me. He looks me over but says he can’t place me. I josh with him for a while, mind racing through the Pirate lineup, until, bingo, I remember good old Jim Morrison, third baseman.

So I sign, “Best wishes, Jim Morrison,” and the kid, while not thrilled, at least doesn’t wad up the program.

But, like only the famous understand, the signing set off a boomlet. Another kid saw him get the autograph and asked him who I was. That kid comes over, and I sign Jim Morrison again.

I know it was shameful, but who got hurt? The kid got an autograph, and I got a rush that you don’t get in real life. For the rest of the night, I knew the feeling of power and importance that famous people must feel all the time.

It was foolish and false, not to mention fleeting.

But, hey, that’s fame for you.