A few years ago we were vacationing in Northern Michigan on Mullett Lake. We had all of our kids, and my daughter from New York, Debra, flew in for a few days. We had a great time, a vacation I will never forget, for a number of reasons.
When it came time for Debra to leave, I had to drive her to Lansing for her return flight home. It was a pleasant drive down, and I got to spend some "quality" time with my daughter.
The Lansing Airport, at that time, was not too big, and we had a wait for her plane to come in.
As it got closer to the arrival time of her plane, I noticed an increase in people waiting. I noticed one elderly man in the waiting crowd, looked familiar, but I could not place him, but it lingered in my mind.
Then, it dawned on me who he was, and I knew what was happening.
"That is Magic Johnson's father," I blurted out to my daughter. They it all dawned on me, Magic is from Lansing, the playoffs are over, the Lakers won, and Magic is coming home, and his father is here to meet him. I got excited, I'm going to get to see Magic Johnson. I had Debra rummaging around in her stuff to find me a piece of paper and a pen or pencil, he is going to walk right by here and I am going to get his autograph, actually the first autograph I had ever asked for.
The plane landed, passengers were getting off, I saw HIM get off and start walking for the door. Remember, years ago, small airport, they walked from the plane to the terminal.
There he came, I had paper and pen in hand, he came closer, he saw me, he knew what I was after.
"Sir, I'm really tired, could we just shake hands"? And we did.
When we got back to the lake, I told a few of the kids what had happened. I was popular, walked down to the basketball court, word got around, and many young boys, and a few girls, came over to shake the hand that had just shaken the hand of Magic Johnson.
