Years ago, I was walking across the campus of Augsburg College in Minneapolis with my roommate. We were discussing our personal weaknesses. My roommate confessed that he coveted wealth. I replied that my inordinate lust was for fame.

I have one autograph (Sissel’s), but I didn’t ask for it. My Viking friends procured it for me (no doubt by means best left to the imagination). I’ve always had an arrogant idea that I’m the kind of person who gives autographs, not one who asks for them.

This meditation on fame was sparked by this piece by James Lileks today, in which he talked about old local radio personalities (WCCO Radio used to be the commonly accepted broadcast public square of southern Minnesota. Nowadays, not so much), in which he mentioned Cedric Adams. Adams is almost forgotten today, even here, but in his day he was both the most popular columnist and the most popular radio personality in the Twin Cities. Airline pilots said they could always tell when his show was done, if they were flying over the metropolitan area, because all the house lights went out at once.

My own distant brush with Adams’ fame (not the man himself) came on a summer Sunday, long, long ago, when one of my uncles by marriage showed up at our farm with a dead dog in his car trunk. It had been his dog, and had died of natural causes, and he thought he could save city disposal fees by burying it on our farm. Dad let him do it, and helped him dig a hole in the willow grove. While they were digging, my uncle told us that the dog had originally belonged to Cedric Adams.

I was deeply impressed that we were giving final hospitality to an animal connected to a celebrity. Which is not a good reflection on my yet-unformed character.

The only celebrity I knew of growing up who had any connection to our area was the Country Western singer Johnny Western, who is remembered primarily for writing and singing the title song to the old “Have Gun, Will Travel” TV show. My aunts used to give me the impression they knew him from going to school in Faribault, but his Wikipedia page says he grew up in Northfield, a few miles away.

A lesser celebrity was the opera singer Richard Cross, who was from Faribault. My mother babysat him when she was a girl.

The bar for being a celebrity in my world is set pretty low. I still have hopes of being the most famous person to be born in the Kenyon-Faribault area.

Which is not a good reflection on my now too-formed character.