Recent brushes with fame

This has been an interesting spring. I have had two chance meetings with two football luminaries in the past two months. (Two! Two! Two...!)

First, I was in Cleveland to visit my parents, and went to an upscale shopping village near their house. I was sitting with our new dog, Laila, outside a nice bookshop, waiting for Joshua to get out of the bathroom, when a nice looking, older, slightly husky man and his wife walk out of the bookstore. Instantly, I knew who he was.

"Excuse me, Mr. Holmgren?"

"Yes?" he replied.

Now, at this point, a fast thinker would probably say something like "Good luck with the Browns," or "May I have your autograph?" All I could manage was "Do us a favor...," to which his wife responded, as they kept walking, "No one wants to do it more than him!"

There I sat, with my dog, looking pretty flummoxed, probably. Oh, well.

Then, a few weeks ago, my family was in Miami Beach visiting my sister for a family event. On the way home, from Ft. Lauderdale airport, we were waiting for our JetBlue flight to Buffalo, when he walks up to the waiting area and watches the golf match on TV at the bar nearby. I recognize him immediately, and casually saunter over to my son to see if he has a pen and paper.

"Joshua, that is [name omitted], go get his autograph!"

Pretty cool. I spoke briefly with him regarding golf, and found out he was going to Buffalo for Jim Kelly's charity golf tournament for Hunter's Hope. (Please check out the charity. It is certainly admirable and has raised millions to search for a cure for the disease that took his son's life.)

Any guesses to the autograph? The departure point and the number under the signature should give it away.