I am the mother of four and grandmother of six and this Val Sharpton character doesn’t seem to understand that the world is trying to recover from the ailing wounds that racism caused to our country.  Now, I am an elderly woman and have seen the effects of racism and egoism in families and in the community.  What we need is to teach the young children that racism is wrong and hopefully if enough parents grab a hold of this way of thinking, it will become extinct entirely.

My husband Paul has met a number of local and national celebrities simply because he is always having his “nifty epiphanies” (as he calls them) and says that the world deserves to be privy to his brain.  For the most part, the celebrities have been nice.  However, there were occasions when some celebrities didn’t appreciate Paul’s ideas, and that was when I knew it was time to take the kids to my sisters for the weekend. 

The police even came to our house once after Paul somehow got a hold of Marie Osmond’s telephone number and called her repeatedly to tell her how he thought her songs would be more effective in a different key and accompanied by a tenor flute.  The police were nice about the whole thing and Marie said she wouldn’t press charges if Paul stopped phoning. 

The best experience we ever had with a celebrity occurred when our youngest son came down with a head cold and missed two days of school.  I wasn’t too worried about the cold, but somehow Paul found a way to blame it on the school cafeteria food and our son’s teachers incessant need to always have spelling tests.  Paul said, “Diane, this constant spelling mixed with the “trough slop” (as he called it) that they feed the kids…I’m surprised all our kids aren’t vomiting letters!”

It took me a while to calm Paul down enough so that he began thinking rationally.  A few minutes later, however, he came to me and said, “Somebody has to do something about this…I’m not going to watch my children die of malnutrition and over-spellinization.”  I told him that I didn’t think that “spellinization” was a word, but he told me that it was and to prove it, he was willing to call Webster, his real parents, and the people that played his parents on TV and ask them.  I didn’t feel like arguing anymore and didn’t want the police at our house again, so I decided to concede.

That night at the dinner table, Paul announced that he had been in his thinking shed all afternoon and had come up with an idea to get the word out to teachers and students that the school system needed to be changed.  He said that he had taken it upon himself to inform everyone and that he decided to ask for the assistance of whom he said was one of the greatest word-users of all time…Dick Norse. 

Dick Norse, at the time, was a fairly new anchorman for channel five and Paul liked watching him because he said he liked getting his news from someone who looked like they could play nose guard for the Redskins.  I asked Paul how he planned on getting Dick Norse to help him and Paul just smiled an evil-looking smile, rubbed his hands together, and stared at the wall.

To make a long story a little longer, Paul wrote Dick Norse a letter explaining our son’s sickness and how it would mean a lot to him if his favorite anchorman could come and visit him while he lay void of energy in his bed.  It took a few weeks, but Dick Norse’s secretary did call us and ask if our son was still sick and if we would still like Mr. Norse to visit. 

The night that he was scheduled to arrive, Paul explained that we were all to be on our best behavior and that all bathrooms were to be cleaned thoroughly.  Even though our son had since recovered from his illness, Paul instructed him to stay in bed so that Dick Norse would see how badly we were all affected by the school food and the spelling tests. 

When he finally arrived, Paul opened the door and nervously said, “Welcome Mr. Dick Norse to our home.”  Mr. Norse smiled and said, “Please, call me Richard…I hear you have a sick son?”  Paul invited him in and asked if he would like any baklava.  Richard declined, which was good because I knew we didn’t have, nor have I ever known how to make baklava.  When Paul gets nervous, he tends to talk a lot and this night was no different.  Paul went on and on about the size of his head after birth, how he always gets lost in the mall, how he hates Wednesdays because they always seem the longest, how he stopped being a Barbara Streisand fan because she always insisted on changing her hairdo, how it was strange that the Americans always hate the Nation of Greece during the Summer Olympics, how he once ate a whole bag of Doritos in one sitting, and he ended on how fun bathrooms can be to clean if we just make it into a game.

Richard seemed a little confused and uncomfortable and so I decided that it was time for him to meet our son.  When we all entered the room, our son became very excited because he thought that Richard was Mickey Rooney.  Richard was even more confused, but Paul explained that his sickness made him a little delirious.  After chatting with our son for a few minutes, Richard told us that he better return home to his wife or she’ll be thinking that he has a girlfriend.  We thanked him for coming by and he handed our son a signed picture of himself.  That picture was framed and still hangs in our house to this day.

With all the excitement that went along with playing host to a celebrity, Paul forgot to even mention the school cafeteria food and the spelling tests.  When I mentioned his forgetfulness, he just sighed and said, “Diane, we’re finally climbing up the social ladder…and no amount of trough slop or spellinization can stop us!”  I guess that’s what I love about Paul…he always is looking at the bigger picture…and in this case, the biggest picture was a signed headshot of Richard Norse.