I met Sip once, but he won't remember me because I was disguised as Jimmy Stewart.

I guess the most memorable guy I ever met was Barry Goldwater when he visited the college I was attending a few months after his 1964 defeat. He impressed me as one of the most unaffected and together guys I had ever met, and 44 years later he still stands out that way in my mind. Met a bunch of local politicians in California who were important in a local way, but most of you won't know them except for former Senator and Governor Pete Wilson (no known relation). I got Adlai Stevenson's autograph when he ran for President in 1956. I guess I mostly met famous politicians who didn't make it to the top job. Almost met Hubert Humphrey but didn't shake his hand and so I guess I shouldn't count him.

Had a couple of lunches with writers who stick in my memory, John Hersey and Irving Stone. Hersey was every bit as smart and observant as his books would make you think he was, and Stone was a great deal smarter and more entertaining than his kind of ordinary potboiler novels would indicate.

I almost met Fess Parker in the late '60s when he made a bad freeway entry and found my car in the space he intended to occupy. But I was still young and had fast reactions, so no harm done.

My mother was the one who had the knack of meeting people that everyone else knew -- or would. Growing up in Austin in the '20s and '30s, she palled around with the girl that the rest of the world would eventually know as Nellie Connally. She crossed paths with a lot of rising Texas stars at that time, but lost touch with them when she moved to California in the '40s.

A hundred years from now what the heck difference will it make? Ten, even.

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David Wilson