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   Adrienne Sioux Koopersmith
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   Weekly Companion © 
   Issue: Sunday, February 11, 2001
   By: Adrienne Sioux Koopersmith 
   "America’s Premier Eventologist" ® 
   adrienne@21stcentury.net
   Eventologist’s Note: This is the First in a Series of "The Day I Met..." 
   Essays on Celebrities and/or Importantes that I have met and that have 
   met me.
   RE: "The Day I Met...Ann Landers" ©01
   Yes, she really does exist.
   She’s not just he figment of a newspaper empire. Low and behold at an 
   exquisite interior design-art gallery store and probably one of the most 
   impressive showrooms on the Planet in Chicago’s River North in the 
   1990s, I met Ann Landers. I forgot the date. Imagine that, but it was 
   an early Friday evening. She was quite approachable. There were no 
   visible bodyguards around her and even if there were, I didn’t really 
   look like a likely threat. Nor did I pose any problems for her...if 
   anything, I made Ann Landers think.
   "Ms. Landers," I began, "I’ve read your column for years."

   She smiled. A weak opening but it was the truth. Sometimes the truth 
   is weak. "I’ve always learned something by it. You and your Sister 
   have really helped a lot of people all these years."

   She smiled. This was her second one. She seemed pleased.
   I reached over to the drink table where we both had paused and I grabbed 
   a peach-colored napkin.
   "Would you mind...an autograph? One I can show the grandchildren." (This 
   was a likely story since I wasn’t even dating anyone seriously at that 
   time and my biological clock was soon to turn off, but I figured Ann did 
   not want to hear that scenario...again. After all, she reads about that 
   topic every day, taken directly from her mailbag).
   If I brought in "The Grandchildren," I felt this was a good way to coax 
   her into an Autograph, nevertheless. After all, who can deny "The 
   Grandchildren." I decided to bring in the Third Part - those rug-rats 
   that become part of ‘Family’ - those little bundle of joys that, too, 
   could benefit from Ann’s righteous and universal advice.
   She smiled and scribbled her name across the peach-colored napkin and 
   then handed it back.
   Instead of smiling and walking away, she then asked me: "Why do People 
   ask for Autographs?" I was totally floored and perplexed, but I acted 
   as non-plus as I possibly could be. I did not contemplate the question 
   coming, but searched quickly through my mind for a brave, sure-fire and 
   encyclopedic-style answer that would be relatively Ann Landersesque in 
   its take.
   I said to myself: "Well, what do you know? Thee Ann Landers is asking 
   ME a question. A total stranger. Did I look like I had an Answer...to 
   anything? And all along, I thought she knew-it-all."

   Then, in order to not postpone her Answer for too long, quite sweetly, 
   as if explaining to a child, I softly said: "It’s a way of getting a 
   little piece of that person in that point of time."

   "Sure beats clipping and clopping off a lock of hair," is what I really 
   meant to say.
   But above all else, here I was answering a Question that had arisen in 
   Ms. Landers’ mind. I was:
   "Ann Landers’ Ann Landers"

   for a fleeting moment. Who, I then thought, does Ann go to when she 
   wants an Answer. I would like to know. This Question evidently was 
   one that she had not pondered...even in all of those thousands of columns 
   she had written for decades. And, here I was, extending an Answer to a 
   woman I had admired for so long a time. That made me feel mighty good!
   If I had not approached her with that peachy napkin, this Question would 
   never have arisen. 
   "I’d rather have your Autograph on a blank check," I could have said 
   snidely, "followed by a lot of 9’s," but I wasn’t brought up to be rude 
   to people who (although affluently rich) earned their way to the top. 
   She earned every cent, too. Advice does not come cheap. There’s a lot 
   of Advice floating around "out there" but it is transient. Like a fast 
   wind, a change in the conversational flow can easily be forgotten or 
   dismissed in less than a moment’s notice.
   If I had not approached Miss Landers, we both would not have been 
   enriched by this brief, yet interesting conversation. After all, 
   Autographs are a vital part of Popular Culture (since the Alphabet was 
   invented), something that surrounds us every day with every letter we 
   pen, check we endorse or envelope we address.
   Good Advice has a hefty price tag affixed to it, especially if it can 
   help someone’s miserable, downtrodden life get back on course.
   I enjoyed the time I spent with Ms. Landers at Portals on Superior. 
   (INSERT: FYI, for all of those wishing to visit this exquisite shop, it 
   has now moved around the corner and is located on North Wells). And, 
   she made me stop and think how People mark their moments in ways that 
   can be as simple as a Signature, even if it is only an "X". Maybe 
   that’s why Autographs are so immensely popular...because there’s a Story 
   behind each Name. "It’s the Diva of the Bik Generation."

   "The Day I Met Ann Landers" was an Experience that only took, maybe, 
   five minutes but it’s an entertaining Story whose Moral makes us all 
   stop and think. Maybe "Stopping and Thinking is something We should do 
   more often.

   END OF TEXT
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   Contributor, Adrienne Sioux Koopersmith lives in Chicago, Illinois, USA 
   and is heralded as "America’s Premier Eventologist ®" by Washington, 
   DC’s Insight Magazine. Having created over 1,275 HOLIDATES TO CELEBRATE 
   ® since Wednesday, July 25, 1990, ASK believes "Every Day is a HOLIDATE 
   ®" and quite appropriately a Miracle & Blessing in and of itself.
   "ASK" may be reached at:
   adrienne@21stcentury.net
   for any and all autographable Encounters you wish to share that came 
   along your way. 
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   ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 
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