Mini Two, Andrew Damiter

My encounters with celebrities have been few, and I’ve come to the realization that this fact has never really bothered me. This isn’t to say that there’s something wrong with such a state of mind and that I should be embarking on a quest to right some wrong, but it's curious that even when I was younger I never felt compelled to grab hold of a piece of celebrity culture. It is because of this lack of enthusiasm that I do not own any celebrity-related memorabilia. I never made a push to acquire something, nor did I take advantage of situations that could have easily produced something tangible for me.

My only real celebrity encounter occurred in the early ‘90s when my father, my sister and I bumped into Graeme Edge, the drummer of the Moody Blues, in an elevator in Atlantic City, New Jersey. My father and I both shook his hand while my sister tried to hide by the door, counting the seconds until we reached our desired floor. When the door finally opened she quickly scurried out and Mr. Edge playfully bent down, stretched out his hands and started wiggling his fingers while he chased her out of the elevator, saying, “Come here little girl!” Oh those Brits.

He offered to give her his drumsticks at the end of the concert, which excited my father way more than my sister. Unfortunately we never made it to the stage to get them. We tried, but by the end of the concert the area in front of the stage had been overrun by throngs of middle-aged woman throwing bushels of roses – why I’ll never know – and themselves upon the stage. I hadn’t yet learned to despise the sound of the Moody Blues so part of me really wanted to get those sticks, but I didn’t even offer to put up a fight. I could have taken my sister and pushed through, but the thought never even crossed my mind.

Switching gears to something that I voluntarily liked, I got the chance to meet a bunch of very sweaty people dressed in giant, goofy turtle outfits during the prime of my Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles obsession. My dad and I must have stood in line for three hours, and for what? I shook each one’s hand, said hello and walked away satisfied. At the time I owned stacks and stacks of TMNT comics, but it never occurred to me that I could get them signed.

Out of the ooze and into the dugout, one of my uncles once pitched in the New York Mets’s farm system. He was prepping for a call up to Triple-A when he was stricken with a shoulder injury. The organization wanted him to go back to Single-A after his recovery, but he stubbornly refused and thus his path to the Major Leagues ended. Not that it’s necessarily important, but from everything I’ve heard he was going to make it all the way up. Anyway, I mention this story because it never occurred to me to ask him if he kept in contact with anyone he used to play with. Seems like a fairly typical question for any young baseball fan to ask. Just the thought of being introduced to a professional athlete and being able to come away with an autograph should have piqued some level of curiosity, right? Not so with me.

All of this leads me to the conclusion that I’ve never felt a strong connection between material possession and celebrity admiration. I’ve kept hockey game tickets from when my dad and I went to see the New Jersey Devils play the New York Islanders on my birthday some years ago and I can still recall small details of that night. I’ve kept the charred remains of a hat I wore all through high school as a youthful reminder of days gone by. I’ve even kept the electronic key card to the hotel room of the resort my family stayed at during our first trip to Disney World. But the Turtles? Just a handshake and a memory, thanks.