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(in the same bed as The Man with No Name?) |
How Often Do We Get to Do What Our Idol Did, Right Where He Did It?
By MURRY
FRYMER
of TheColumnists.com
I don't know all the places George Washington slept and I don't
want to know. I never slept at one of them.
On the other hand, consider my hero Clint Eastwood. (This column pauses for a moment for us all to do just that, with a smile and a sigh.) I once MAY have slept where Clint Eastwood slept.
It was a summer some years ago, when Clint was mayor of the splendid little town called Carmel by the Sea. Clint was doing some yeoman work in that town, let me tell you. For one thing, he saw to it that little kids could not eat ice cream cones while walking down the street. And spiffy clean Carmel was grateful and reelected him.
Anyway, one summer some years ago, as I began to say, Clint had a very attractive campaign manager whose name escapes me, though her perfume lingers. She was living in one of those dandy little Carmel homes which have names. This one was named "Yellow Bird."
The place was owned by a couple of designers from San Francisco who, upon the campaign manager's departure from "Yellow Bird," placed a newspaper ad offering the place to a person of taste. I answered. The price for a week of bliss was high, but it was much more reasonable, per week, for a month of bliss. I said yes.
And so that weekend I put the wife and daughter in the car and drove to Carmel by the Sea. The little yellow house was just as blissful as advertised. But there was a special extra treat in store. "Hey, Dad," said the daughter, "all the magazines on the coffee table are addressed to Clint Eastwood. Is it THAT Clint Eastwood?"
"Of course, it is THAT Clint Eastwood," I responded. "We are in Carmel by the Sea where the mayor is the actor, Clint Eastwood. What Clint Eastwood would it be?"
"He lived here?" came the surprise and awed voice.
"Looks like it," I said, by way of including myself into the mayor and actor's tight little circle. "Yes," I said, running my finger over those address labels, "it looks like it."
"But why would he live here?" came the voice. Indeed, it was not exactly mayorly or actorly quarters. But the answer popped into my head just about a half hour later. There was an item in the local paper that Mayor Eastwood was seen a lot with his very attractive campaign manager. A LOT!
Was she making his day? I thought, yes, of course, that must be it.
I brought this little thought to the fore that very night when I and my missus, the Beautiful Barbara, were lounging in the very comfy bed in the very blissful bedroom in "Yellow Bird."
"Do you know who slept here?" I asked my lady. She caught on immediately. "You don't think----!!" she said. "Uh-huh," I said, with certaintly.
Oh, to do what Clint Eastwood does in the very place he does it, I thought. That is truly blissful.
Anyway, neither Clint nor his very attractive campaign manager ever came to the house asking for the magazines back. So when we left "Yellow Bird" I took a handful home, not because I was particularly interested in their content, but because the labels offered such a cachet of fame.
I had those magazines on my coffee table for years, though they have all disappeared now, stolen, no doubt, by friends of mine who had no manners.
Now, you are going to question this and say, "C'mon how do you KNOW you and Clint Eastwood engaged in the same sort of activity in the very same bed (at different times.)? "
Well, I just smile. I believe that is the very truth. I choose to believe it and you cannot dissuade me. I have the magazines (or did have) to prove it.
Some day, if I run into Clint Eastwood, I will ask him. Or if I run into his campaign manager.
By the way, I have no recollection whether Clint and his campaign manager won that year. But in my slender volume of illustrious moments, I did.
© 2000 by Murry Frymer. The illustration is © 2000 by Jim Hummel.
TOMORROW:
Our Clint Eastwood celebration continues with Ron Miller's report
on "Eastwood Without A Net"
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