Seeing Stars

After Kevin and Melissa’s wedding Randy our middle son came home with us to visit for a week, Friday was his last full day here and when asked if there was anything he wanted to see before leaving California he came up with several suggestions that we just could not accommodate, so without going into all the suggestions a 23 year old young man can come up with I’ll just say he really wanted to go see the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

For those of you who have never been there this place is loaded with history and the performers, whether you are speaking of music, film, or TV is just scratching the surface of the talent that has walked down Hollywood Boulevard, we arrived and I was truly amazed at the names I read on the stars lining the sidewalks, I could list a whole page but will only say that it was really impressive.

Our second celebrity so to say that we ran into the last couple weeks in addition to Mike “Mighty Mike” Murga aka our mini Elvis was Jimmy Kimmel we actually saw him taping an episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live standing on Hollywood Boulevard doing a meet and greet, he was talking to a woman and was playing with her small child, there were so many people around him that I only got a few shots with the camera and Cindy made a dash back when the crown thinned some to take one more, Sorry Ron I didn’t get an autograph but did make eye contact through the crowd, it was either eye contact or he was thinking “Great another camera” it was pretty cool to watch this going on and amazing at how many people walked by without even looking to see what was going on.

Another celebrity that gets very little recognition is a man named John who is disabled and works very hard cleaning the stars on the walk, he is missing a leg and each time I have been down here so has he, he is always down on the ground with a rag, brasso, and a brush making the stars shine, dragging his supplies and crutches from star to star, I really wanted to get a picture of him but when we saw him a young man was kneeling down talking to him, John moved his stuff to the next star and this young man stayed right in front of him and continued talking, about the time I got to him I heard him say to this young man “I really have enjoyed talking to you but really wish you would leave me alone right now as I still have a lot of work to do” I figured he had most likely been harassed enough and gave him a smile and respected what he had asked the young man, by not interrupting him again. He appears to be a great guy and I just wanted to give him a shout out and hope any of you who go to Hollywood will say hello to him and appreciate the good work he does.

We stopped by Grauman's Chinese Theatre to see the many foot and handprints out front, there are over 200 hand and footprints here and they include personalities from the 1920’s to current day celebrities, it was neat to see Cindy place her hand in the same spot Natalie Wood had hers the same year Cindy was born and felt pretty good to place my right foot in the exact same spot Jimmy Stewart had his back in 1948, no big thing to a lot of folks but the quality of talent that has walked these streets is impressive to me.

Heading back up the street we went through the Wax Museum, Ripley’s Believe it or Not, and the Guinness Book of World Records, the Wax Museum was really nice and the quality work made you wonder if they were real or not for some.

Randy Ran Into Rambo

Cindy was Kicking It with Charlie’s Angels

Randy and I saw the Governator back before he got into politics.

And I had to sit down with some joker I ran into but his rambling about things I didn’t understand led me to think it was going to be a Dark Night, he kept interrupting me wanting to know why I was so serious and wanting to put a smile on my face, I was kind of glad to leave this guy sitting there talking to himself.

We really had a good time and on our way back up the street we stopped in a souvenir shop, imagine that someone selling souvenirs in Hollywood, but while looking at all the goodies Cindy picked up a large sucker and said Hey Jimmy take my picture I want a sucker shot, a man standing behind me popped off “looks like it’ll be a picture of two suckers” we got a good laugh and he agreed to make it three suckers and stood with Cindy for a picture, he was visiting from Ohio and was a really good man to meet.

I could go on and on but wanted to share some of our last full day with Randy in Hollywood, We saw stars from yesteryear and today, ate at Mel’s Diner, bought a few t-shirts and drove in LA Traffic which was not anything I would wish on any of you, if you ever get a chance to go and visit Hollywood it is worth it if for nothing else but to see the different people walking the streets that will make you remember how diverse and also exactly the same we all are. It is so eerie you will definitely see stars.