Thursday, June 5, 2008

The Day I Met The Piano Man

Climb aboard my time machine with me, take a walk with me through some of my fonder memories..

It had to have been 1983, I was still living with my dad at Hickam A.F.B. and I bet meeting the Piano Man and his girl were the first celebrities I met in the 5 years I worked at the Honolulu Airport.

I was meeting a "inter island" flight at the inter island terminal, Hawaiian Airlines if I'm not mistaken. There were no jetways there, you came down the stairs of the 737, walked across the tarmac to the baggage claim, which was open air. There was a wall with a doorways and gates so one could not access the tarmac without permission, the rest of the baggage claim could be accessed by anyone.

The passengers began to come through the doorway as I stood there with my sign, my dispatcher from E&M Tours was also there with me. As I watch the passengers walk by I see a beautiful blond woman walk towards me with a bright smile, and a golden glow. The glow almost reminds me of an aura. The man she is with is shorter then her, wearing dark sunglasses, and has dark hair.

As they walk past me, it hits me who they are. I stare in amazement, more like gawk. I then look at my dispatcher who seems to be in another world, I asked him if he'd seen who just walked by him. He said who?

I was stunned. I remember telling him "the most beautiful woman in the world just walked by you and you didn't even see her!", he just smiled.


Yes, Billy Joel and Christie Brinkley had just passed by me and it seemed that no one had noticed but me.

I collected my passengers, we got their luggage and put them on the transportation to their hotel. I then walked over to Billy and Christie who were chatting with their limo driver and summoned up the courage to ask for their autographs.

Christie smiled that beautiful wholesome smile, she took my pen and paper and signed her name for me, then handed it to Billy, who I could tell was very shy. He kept his dark glasses on, his head tilted, almost as he was nervous about looking me in the eye. He was not rude though, he was very polite, almost child like. It was an amazing moment in time for me. There was only one other couple I met during the 80s who impressed me more. I will tell you about them soon.

I'm glad Billy and Christie are still friends today. They seemed like genuinely good people that day 25 yrs ago. They still bring a smile to my face to this day, that is a true fact.

photo courtsey of deviantArt.com

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh, that is soooo cool!

Lysa Napolitano said...

Yeah, they were pretty neat Boomer. I remember it like yesterday.