A Tale as Old as Time

And now, for something a little different. It’s not even #tbt and I’m giving you a rare glimpse into my past and I’m doing it as part of a storytelling link-up with Kristi at and babies don’t keep. You lucky readers are about to be treated to a tale as old as time. No, it’s not the story of how when I met Evan he was a beast trapped in an enchanted castle and after we fell in love he was transformed into his current-day princely self. That’s a story for another day. This tale is one of celebrities and missed connections and it's actually only 10 years old. Ingrigued? Read on.

 

Of my college years, 2004 was a pretty great vintage.  I started off the year with a Winter Term class on film studies, lived with three of my best friends in the Alpha Phi house, spent the summer stuffing myself full of cornbread and fried green tomatos while waiting tables at Ramsey’s, and then headed in Spain, where I peppered my semester abroad with weekend trips to Morocco, London, Ireland and Paris. I would do it again in a heartbeat, but wearing more sunscreen and moisturizer. (Oh, the things you learn as a semi-grownup.)

What made 2004 an even better year was the fact that my film studies class involved watching a few movies on campus, then heading to Park City, Utah to continue my “studies” at the Sundance Film Festival. For me, an avid student of celebrities and pop culture in general, this may have been the highlight of my life. (Evanshine, take note: I REALLY LOVED Sundance and WOULD LOVE TO GO BACK, PERHAPS AS A CHRISTMAS PRESENT ALONG WITH SOME BLACK BOOTS…).

For a few weeks every January, Park City, Utah is like a condensed version of Hollywood: chock-full of celebrities, but because the town pretty much consists of one block of bars and restaurants, the ratio of celebrities to normal plebes like myself was excellent. Just walking around, we spotted Sharon Stone, Andrew Firestone (Bachelor fans, unite!), Tim Robbins (who refused to take a picture with us because he was "too sweaty"), Mallory from the Real World: Paris*, Mark Ruffalo, Jay somebody from Supertroopers, McCauley Caulkin, Mandy Moore, Robert Redford, Darrell Hammond, and more. I’m such a namedropper, right? Sorry. No, I’m not.

 * This was a big deal to us at the time, okay?

For my roommate and travel companion Stacy and me, 2004 was also a great year in Hair. We had perfected the “flip out” style and were rocking it pretty hard. One of many great things about this style was that it looked great even with a hat on.

Exhibit A.  See how nicely my hair stuck out from my hat?

 

Fortunately for her, our other friend Tanja had not fallen prey to this trend. Instead, Tanja had long, curly blonde hair that doesn’t even look out of style now. Tanja also wore very stylish sunglasses all around Park City, giving her the air of a celebrity and leading a whole lot of people to stop our little trio on the streets to ask Tanja which movie she was in. For a reason that I still don’t understand, I was not asked this question even one time.

One night, as we made our celebrity prowl up and down Park City’s main drag, an oldish, non-famous-looking man stopped us. As usual, he ignored me and Stacy and asked Tanja: “What movie are you in?”

Tanja laughed. “Oh, I’m not in a movie…”

“Well, my agent would like to talk to you.”

Nervous laugh. “Um, okay, sure…”  What a line!, I thought. This guy was clearly a liar and we needed to get away from him immediately. So we all took a few steps backward, avoided eye contact, and continued our celebrity hunt on down the street. We soon got cold and found a coffee shop to warm up in. Because I had not yet discovered my love of chai lattes, I ordered hot chocolate and we found an ideal table giving us not only a prime view into the street, but also easy access to the door should a celebrity stroll by that needed our stalking.

A few minutes later, our old friend walked by the store. Glancing through the window, he spotted Tanja and opened the door.

“Hey, I was serious about my agent wanting to talk to you –“

“Oh,” said Stacy, cutting him off. “You have an agent. So you’re an actor, huh?”

He tore his glance away from Tanja and noticed Stacy. “Um, yes.”

“Ok, if you’re an actor, what have you been in?” Stacy clearly wasn’t buying this guy’s act. Neither was I.

He gave a confused smile and named a few things that sounded like soap operas and some movies that I’d never heard of. Amateur hour, I thought, nodding like I knew what he was talking about. He was still going. “…Coach.”

“Huh.” Stacy was also not impressed. Tanja and I gave the man an awkward smile (though I’m still not sure he had noticed that I was there.)

“Well, okay,” he said, defeated. It was clear that he wasn’t impressing us. “It was nice to meet you all.  I’m Craiger.” And with that, he turned and left the coffee shop, taking Tanja’s big break with him.

“Craiger!” we giggled. What a name. It was only later, when we got back to the hotel and got online, that we realized who we’d been speaking to:

The Coach himself, Craig T. Nelson. Sorry, Craiger!

Note: I just realized that it says something about my current day life that the best story I could think of to tell happened more than ten years ago. Dang.