Yes It’s True: I have met many celebrities, but so what?

I have told the world that I really don’t like celebrity journalism. I especially don’t like it when politicians use their phony fame to show up for photo opps when they didn’t do anything to deserve having their pictures taken.

All they do in these instances is prove Woody Allen’s famous quote, “Eighty percent of life is just showing up.”

Nonetheless, I recently thought about my less than stellar career in community journalism, which spans more than 45 years, and the famous celebrities I have met. I found some celebrities to be full of themselves, some pretty much as I had perceived them, and yet a few who genuinely were decent, honorable people.

The following is my unscientic survery and observations:

Leonard Nimoy

Perhaps best known as “Mr. Spock” on the iconic “Star Trek TV show, Nimoy was stumping for George McGovern in the 1972 presidential election at Grand Valley State University. I covered his presentation.

Backstage, I asked him if it was fair for celebrities to lend their fame to political campaigns, and he immediately acknowledged the pitfalls. However, he also said that as a human being deeply concerned about the future of the country he loved, he was uncomfortable just sitting on the sidelines when there was something he could do he felt was right.

I also was mildly critical of him taking on a role in the “Mission Impossible” TV series and he readily agreed. He told me, “I have a family and we need to eat.”

Of all the celebrities I’ve ever met, Nimoy was the friendliest and most genuine.

Paul Henry

A longtime Republican congressman from the Grand Rapids area, Henry was stricken with brain cancer in October 1992 and died at the end of July in 1993. I remember the night he failed to show for a debate against businesswoman Carol Kooistra, who respected him so much she distributed his literature and refused to say an unkind word about him in his absence.

Henry once took a lot of heat at a Republican dinner about getting caught bouncing checks and replied that colleague Howard Wolpe, a Democrat, was caught as well and he had the audacity to maintain Wolpe was a U.S. legislator of the highest integrity. This would have infuriated Ranger Rick, who I’m certain regarded him as a “Remocrat.”

M-6 today is also known as the Henry Expressway in tribute to him.

Paul Hillegonds

Former State Rep. Paul Hillegonds and I used to chat a lot about issues. He was once co-speaker of the House in Lansing and represented all of Allegan County.

Though we disagreed a lot, we found common ground on issues such as the environment and supply-side (“trickle down”) economics, making him another one of them-there Remocrats.

George W. Bush

This one will surprise my friends and loyal enemies. In met Dubya in 1988 when he was stumping for his dad in the 1988 presidential campaign. I even took a picture of him with longtime Allegan County Commissioner Muriel O’Leary.

Dubya were very likeable, very polite and kind. To this day, however, I found his politics reprehensible and ruinous.

Jennifer Granholm

Also very likeable and gracious was former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm, who impressed me because she remembered who I was every time she saw me. To this day, I believed her tenure as governor was doomed because she was surrounded in Lansing by as adversarial and partisan Republican Party. Gretchen Whitmer should be advised.

Those who were as advertised

I interviewed Gene McCarthy, the 1968 candidate for president and told him I supported him. He was a nice man, very professorial, but later that year he endorsed Ronald Reagan.

I brushed elbows with Gerald Ford, who was a fairly quiet and decent man. To this day, many Republicans still don’t believe he was pro-choice. Ford was somewhat shrewd in that he welcomed the long-haired hippies who protested his appearances in 1968 because they helped his re-election chances.

Former Gov. John Engler was as advertised, arrogant and abrasive and sometimes funny. He really did look like a lot like Danny DeVito (“Louie” in “Taxi”).

I interviewed Phil Regan when the new WHS gym was christened and there was a celebration of the 1955 basketball team that made it to the state finals. He didn’t make a big deal about himself.

Perhaps the least impressive famous person I met was George Romney, whom I admired from afar for his principled stand on civil rights, but he was uncomfortable and short with his followers at political rallies.

And Jessie Jackson, the year he first ran for president, 1984, in Albion was indeed a hustler bordering on demagoguery, though he wasn’t as skilled in his craft as Donald Trump.

Yes, I’ve met a lot of celebrities. And as I so often like to comment, “That, and 73 cents, will get me a senior’s cup of coffee at McDonald’s.”