On page 36 of the July 25th issue of The New Yorker magazine, there's a 50-year-old photo of writer Calvin Trillin speaking to civil rights leader John Lewis in Alabama.

It occurs to me that I might be the only person around here to have met (briefly) both of these men.

I know Trillin has been to Spokane a couple of times. Maybe Lewis has been here, too. But I'll bet nobody here met both.

I encountered Trillin in a newsroom where I worked in another state. He was looking for someone to accompany him to a barbecue place that was my favorite.

And I spoke to Lewis in the mid-'80s at an event in Mississippi attended by a politician I was doing a story on, Mike Espy.

Anyway, here's the question. Can you name a couple of national figures with whom you have had fleeting personal encounters that no one else around here could claim to have duplicated?

I'm not really talking about brushes with celebrities. As far as fame goes, I have no doubt most people could not identify Trillin or Lewis. But they are known in certain circles all across the country. And seeing that picture of their meeting in 1961 made me shake my head and think about unexpected connections. 

---

---