I met Gary Coleman once

Well, sort of. More like we were in the same location for half an hour.

I was leadinga day-long youth group bike trip, riding from Long Beach down to Seal Beach and back. At the midway point we stopped at a shopping center that had a video arcade (remember those places?). Some of the kids went inside while I waited outside to flag down a few lollygaggers who had fallen behind.

Into the parking lot pulled a Hummer. One of the originals. This is around 1994, so this is back before Hummers became suburbanized. The Hummer parks in the middle of the lot. Not in a parking spot, but right in the middle of the driveway. Right behind two cars, blocking them in.The door pops open. And out jumps Gary Coleman. (Stop there for a minute, and just picture Gary Coleman jumping out of a full-size Hummer.) He walked into the arcade, which, it turned out, he owned.

He went into the office, then came out and sat at a table, in the middle of the room, to look over some paperwork. A few people approached him, but he blew them off. He seemed to be enjoying 'being seen' by the lowly people, but he couldn't be bothered to actually interact with them.

Of course, we had Todd in our group, and he wasn't one to give up easily. This is the same Todd who showed up Weird Al and Bob Saget. So Todd walked up to Gary and asked, with enthusiasm, "Hey, do you know who you are?" He was relentless, prodding and pleading with Gary to say it. His one line. "What you talkin' bout, Willis?" But no, Gary wouldn't budge. He just pretended to concentrate all the harder on his paperwork, looking annoyed.

I should mention that, about this time, the owners of those cars in the lot were trying to leave, but couldn't, because of the large Hummer planted directly behind them. But who's to rush Gary Coleman? Who's to speak ill of Gary Coleman and his ginormous 'car'?

After 20 minutes or so, either Gary was finished or he was tired of Todd, because he said goodbye to a couple employees and left. Stop for just a minute, and picture Gary Coleman hopping up into a Hummer. Yup. Took a couple more minutes to get situated, and then drove away.

And life went on as normal, and we all had a good story to share at the next youth group meeting.

My Heath Ledger Story

I missed meeting Heath Ledger by about 5 minutes.

We were in Los Angeles for a Cross-Cultural-Encounter class, one of the final pieces of my time in seminary. We spent the afternoon at Venice Beach, enjoying the sights and sounds and scents and flavors of one of L.A.'s more exciting spots. Being that I had lived in L.A. for most of a decade, I was somewhat enjoying the role of tour guide to many of my fellow students, who were mostly from Canada and Kansas.

In the early evening, I was walking north along the beach with Mike (a friend from Fresno), and a young lady from Canada. Off in the distance I saw the telltale high-power lights of a movie shoot. The three of us wandered over to see what was happening. As we approached, they were just beginning to take one final shot of a skateboarder riding "into the sunset." We began talking to one of the crew on the fringes of the set.

"So what movie are you making?"

"It's called 'Lords of Dogtown," about the early skating culture down here."

"Does it star anybody we would know?"

"Well, it's directed by Catherine Hardwicke, who did 'Thirteen.' And the main star is Heath Ledger."

At that point, the young lady with us swooned. Both Mike and I said "who?" but she actually swooned.

"Yeah, he was just here, but left about 5 minutes ago to begin setting up for filming a street scene in town. Otherwise you could have met him."

Eventually, I figured out that Heath Ledger was that guy I'd seen in "A Knight's Tale." Other than that, I knew nothing about him. But strangely, when we told the story to the larger class at our debriefing that night, all the ladies once again swooned. Just because we'd been on the same beach where he had been.

And that's the closest I ever got to Heath Ledger.