Fair warning: What follows is what I would call a “stream of consciousness” rambling. It’s just one thought leading to another. (Of course, that’s not much different from my standard writing, but it might be a little more annoying than usual.)

In a conversation, a while back, a friend expressed that she liked hot, summer weather. Suddenly, the title of a movie came to my mind: “Some Like It Hot.”

I then thought of Marilyn Monroe who starred in that famous 1959 show. And then I thought… well, never mind. I don’t need to share all of my thoughts here. But, you can see that there was any number of directions that my thoughts might have gone at that point.

Certainly, your first thought was that I was thinking that Marilyn was married to Joe DiMaggio at one time. And that Joe was a New York Yankees baseball player. And that Yogi Berra also played for the Yankees.

And that Yogi Berra was asked what he thought of Ernest Hemingway after being introduced at a party. And Yogi said:

“He’s quite a character. What does he do?”

“Well, he’s a writer.”

“Yeah? What paper?

(I certainly wouldn’t have been thinking of air vents and skirts or any such thing.)

What I then reminded myself of, relative to that “Some Like It Hot” movie, was that Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon also starred along with Marilyn Monroe. I remembered that my dad ran into Jack Lemmon in an elevator at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco many years ago. As I remember the report, dad thought Jack was a pleasant guy. But dad didn’t get an autograph.

My wife shared an elevator with Muhammad Ali and his bodyguards in a hotel in Denver. She didn’t get his autograph either.

I, however, did get Jay Leno’s autograph at a stop sign outside the NBC studio in Burbank, California. We had been to his show and when we saw a cop parked at a stop sign, as we were walking a little way out from the studio, our suspicions were raised.

The cop was nice enough to tell us that, yes, Jay would be stopping right there soon. And Jay was nice enough to sign the back of a studio map for me when he came along a few minutes later.

On that same California trip, we went to a one-woman stage show at the Garry Marshall theater. It was based on the life of Katherine Hepburn. The actress was Stephanie Zimbalist.

Some of you will remember that Stephanie played opposite Pierce Brosnan in the TV series “Remington Steele” in the ’80s. (That was a few years before Brosnan took on the role of James Bond for four movies.)

Anyway, after the play, for kicks, we hung out in the lobby and looked at the display cases of memorabilia. Lo and behold, Stephanie appeared and greeted the only other small group of people in the lobby. They were obviously friends or family. But, as any gracious celebrity would do, she noticed us and walked over for a quick visit and signed my wife’s program.

Back to the movie theme, in that TV show “Remington Steele,” Brosnan’s character was always able to quote the title of a movie and the year it was produced. He would then come up with a scene from the movie that would solve the crime or get them out of trouble in every episode.

If you pressed my wife on the “what if” question of who would you choose to be stranded with on a lonely island (not counting her loving husband, of course), Brosnan would be in her top 10… or top five, or right behind Paul McCartney.

Speaking again of movies, I’ve yet to see the latest “Downton Abbey” movie. It’s been out for nearly a year. My wife and I saw the first movie – three years ago, I think. My daughter snagged a few tickets for some business clients, friends and her “aged parents.”

There was a lot of estrogen in that theater. I think it might have been me and one other guy in the place.

It reminded me of when I took child development classes at BYU. It also reminded me of when I saw “Mama Mia” in Ephraim and we all stood up at the end and clapped and sang “Dancing Queen.” That’s when I noticed that my gender was in a very pronounced minority in the movie auditorium.

It was the opposite situation of when my wife and I were in Honolulu years ago when we decided to go dancing. I took her into a club near our hotel. We went straight to the dance floor.

It didn’t take Diane long to notice that it looked like she was the only female dancing among a crowd of guys. Oops! I guess the lighting was dim. I hadn’t really noticed. In any event, we didn’t stay very long.

My wife tricked me into watching the entire series of the TV series of “Downton Abbey.” She had purchased all the DVDs and badgered me into watching the first episode. She said she wouldn’t bug me about watching any more than that one single episode. Of course that first episode was a “gateway drug” to the entire series.

Well, there is much more to ramble on about, but there’s only so much ink I’m allowed to use in this space. It seems that movies and celebrities have been on my mind.

We went to the show “A Man Called Otto” at the SouthTowne Theatre last Friday. I really liked it. Tom Hanks played a great part and I recommend the show. (Common Sense Media gives it five stars and says the audience should be age 13+’ish)

— Merrill

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