Spending an afternoon almost every summer week in Jackson, WY, is an interesting proposition. Most days you don't see famous folk but every now and then you meet a celebrity. Today the folks eating hamburgers next to us were Mario Gabelli and his family. He has been a frequent guest on financial programs like CNBC and some years back Louis Rukeyser's show on PBS. He is, by the way, a very pleasant fellow as well as being an investment guru.
On other occasions, in that same burger joint - Billy's, we've chatted with Dick Cheney's Secret Service detail. Dick would spend August here during the 8 years of the Bush presidency, his plane parked on the apron at Jackson's airport. We privately called it "Air Force Two" although we know that isn't what the Air Force calls the Vice President's plane.
Cheney's Secret Service detail were a fit looking group of young men each with a curly cord running from his ear piece down into his shirt. They viewed spending August in Jackson Hole as much better duty than if they'd been in Crawford, Texas; the temperature probably averages 20 degrees cooler here.
Probably the best known local resident is Harrison Ford. We've seen him in KMart and also walking down the sidewalk outside the Cadillac restaurant, carrying a sixpack of exotic beer. Ford is very fit looking, but perhaps not as tall as you'd gather from his films.
The last time we lived in a place where seeing celebrities was normal was some decades ago when we spent 2 years living and working in the Washington, D.C., area. We'd see senators walking with their aides on Capitol Hill and run into famous folk at the region's three airports. When you live in DC your local news is everyone else's national news.
