NOTE: I wrote this months ago, and was nervous about posting it. Enough time has passed, and the summer is over so, with some name changes, I will post it.
Over the summer, I went to a big family reunion. We had over thirty cousins and aunts and uncles, some I hadn’t seen in a decade.
But that’s not why you called.
We had it at a lake where the family has had a cottage going back sixty years or so. It is a quiet, secluded place that before satellite barely got TV reception. Today, you can only get on the internet via dial up.
There are a few dozen cottages around the lake. It isn’t a touristy place. There are no hotels. A great place to get away from everything. If it wasn’t for my family connection, I wouldn’t know about it.
My sister has a friend who also has a place there who told her that a certain celebrity (that I will only call “He” from now on, even though it may not even be a he) had bought property there. I didn’t quite believe it because this person has no real ties to the area that I know of, so why would they be there?
At the reunion, my sister asked our cousin who spends much of the summer at the lake, if she had heard the rumor.
“Actually, yesterday (another cousin) helped him tow his kayak back home after he and (another celebrity friend) got stuck”
So, the rumor was true. And it was pretty cool to hear as the celebrity friend was, well, I won’t give that away either.
It all got me thinking.
First of all, do you know how easy it would have been to become a paparazzi and tried to get pictures of this person? Without saying why, there would be a market for them. I could have made enough to pay off my car, finance a movie, something like that.
And second, I could NEVER become a paparazzi. Invade someone’s privacy like that? I’d feel awful about it. It is one thing if they are in L.A at a movie premiere, or at a restaurant or something. But this isn’t L.A.
This person has successfully found a completely out of the way place where he and his friends can stay and have fun. Why would I take that away? How could anyone do that?
Plus, to have the lake turn into a place for photographers on jet skis? No thanks. It was bad enough when I would take a canoe out and get hit by the wake of a speedboat.
When I write about the stars in my “What Ever Happened To” series, it is often with a sense of amazement that someone can go from being on the big screen or being a regular on a TV series, to completely retiring and living in “the real world”. By becoming a star, they are essentially giving up their anonymity. It is one of the costs of fame. Still, some, either by choice or by bad career moves, are able to give it up.
Here, this person, still a star, is able to just get away from it all for a few days, away from the paparazzi, and away from the spotlight. I won’t take that away.
Although let’s just hope they take some kayak lessons.
Over the summer, I went to a big family reunion. We had over thirty cousins and aunts and uncles, some I hadn’t seen in a decade.
But that’s not why you called.
We had it at a lake where the family has had a cottage going back sixty years or so. It is a quiet, secluded place that before satellite barely got TV reception. Today, you can only get on the internet via dial up.
There are a few dozen cottages around the lake. It isn’t a touristy place. There are no hotels. A great place to get away from everything. If it wasn’t for my family connection, I wouldn’t know about it.
My sister has a friend who also has a place there who told her that a certain celebrity (that I will only call “He” from now on, even though it may not even be a he) had bought property there. I didn’t quite believe it because this person has no real ties to the area that I know of, so why would they be there?
At the reunion, my sister asked our cousin who spends much of the summer at the lake, if she had heard the rumor.
“Actually, yesterday (another cousin) helped him tow his kayak back home after he and (another celebrity friend) got stuck”
So, the rumor was true. And it was pretty cool to hear as the celebrity friend was, well, I won’t give that away either.
It all got me thinking.
First of all, do you know how easy it would have been to become a paparazzi and tried to get pictures of this person? Without saying why, there would be a market for them. I could have made enough to pay off my car, finance a movie, something like that.
And second, I could NEVER become a paparazzi. Invade someone’s privacy like that? I’d feel awful about it. It is one thing if they are in L.A at a movie premiere, or at a restaurant or something. But this isn’t L.A.
This person has successfully found a completely out of the way place where he and his friends can stay and have fun. Why would I take that away? How could anyone do that?
Plus, to have the lake turn into a place for photographers on jet skis? No thanks. It was bad enough when I would take a canoe out and get hit by the wake of a speedboat.
When I write about the stars in my “What Ever Happened To” series, it is often with a sense of amazement that someone can go from being on the big screen or being a regular on a TV series, to completely retiring and living in “the real world”. By becoming a star, they are essentially giving up their anonymity. It is one of the costs of fame. Still, some, either by choice or by bad career moves, are able to give it up.
Here, this person, still a star, is able to just get away from it all for a few days, away from the paparazzi, and away from the spotlight. I won’t take that away.
Although let’s just hope they take some kayak lessons.
