About twenty-five years ago, when I was living in Davis, California, several of my friends and I decided to take a trip to Disneyland.
We had a great time all morning, and eventually found ourselves in an obscure, uncrowded and quite out-of-the-way corner of the park, where we basically stumbled upon a large group having some sort of picnic. One of my friends did a double-take: the leader of the group was none other than Muhammad Ali! "The Greatest" motioned for us to come over and join the gathering: each of us shook hands with him, exchanged greetings and had our picture taken with Ali. He was extremely gracious. I'm not sure but I think we even had a bite to eat from their picnic offerings. Later, we all agreed that never in our lives would any of us ever meet a more famous and influential person.
When I have some time, I'll dig deep through my old photo albums and try to find that photo with Ali. I hope it's still intact. [If so, I'll post it one of these days.]
[Coda: A year or two later, we decided to go back to Disneyland for a return visit. This time, of all things, we crossed paths with Michael Jackson and his entourage. We saw him, but were outside the swarm-of-bees-like crowd surrounding Michael. Later that day, I overheard one of my friends- from South America- calling his wife and saying, "Wow, Disneyland is amazing. Every time you go there, you run in to a global superstar! First Muhammad Ali, now Michael Jackson! They never publicize that!"]
We had a great time all morning, and eventually found ourselves in an obscure, uncrowded and quite out-of-the-way corner of the park, where we basically stumbled upon a large group having some sort of picnic. One of my friends did a double-take: the leader of the group was none other than Muhammad Ali! "The Greatest" motioned for us to come over and join the gathering: each of us shook hands with him, exchanged greetings and had our picture taken with Ali. He was extremely gracious. I'm not sure but I think we even had a bite to eat from their picnic offerings. Later, we all agreed that never in our lives would any of us ever meet a more famous and influential person.
When I have some time, I'll dig deep through my old photo albums and try to find that photo with Ali. I hope it's still intact. [If so, I'll post it one of these days.]
[Coda: A year or two later, we decided to go back to Disneyland for a return visit. This time, of all things, we crossed paths with Michael Jackson and his entourage. We saw him, but were outside the swarm-of-bees-like crowd surrounding Michael. Later that day, I overheard one of my friends- from South America- calling his wife and saying, "Wow, Disneyland is amazing. Every time you go there, you run in to a global superstar! First Muhammad Ali, now Michael Jackson! They never publicize that!"]
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