They walk among us.
No, not zombies. Rather, actors and other notables going about their daily business, walking streets, eating in restaurants, attending events.
One such celebrity was the singer/songwriter/political activist Peter Yarrow, of Peter, Paul and Mary fame. Yarrow died Tuesday, January 7. He was 86 (https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/07/arts/music/peter-yarrow-dead.html?smid=url-share).
I have a problem remembering names, offset by a talent recognizing faces. Often I press pause while watching TV to point out to Gilda an actor’s role in a different show we’ve seen. I’ve observed numerous notables, most often while I worked in Manhattan, including Steve Allen and his wife Jayne Meadows, Dustin Hoffman, Al Pacino, Neil Simon, Johnny Damon, Richard Lewis, David Wells, Jackie Onassis. Usually, I shake their hand, thank them for their work, and try to do so without causing a stir that might alert other pedestrians to their proximity to the famous.
As a fan of Peter, Paul and Mary since the early 1960s, I had no difficulty recognizing Yarrow as we stood in line during an intermission of a play on, and this is truly eerie, January 8, 2011, one day shy of exactly 14 years before his death (I know the date as I posted a blog on January 9, 2011, about meeting him the night before).
During intermission of “A Little Night Music,” I wrote, I literally ran into Yarrow. I thanked him for being one of my cultural heroes and told him of the time in 1968 I sat in the first row of a PP&M concert at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center and distracted bass player, Dick Kniss, into missing a beat in one of their songs.
Peter was most gracious, seemingly pleased to be recognized but not revealed to the throngs surrounding him. Ten minutes later, as he passed me on the way back to his seat, he said hello to Gilda and our friends and remembered my name.
