Breakfast with a star

Friday, Pixie and I had the honor of having breakfast with a local celebrity: Jamie Farr.

For those of you not familiar with Mr. Farr's work, allow me to enlighten you. Farr propelled himself into the homes and hearts of Americans with his famed role as Corporal Klinger in the television series M*A*S*H. He gained most of his notoriety as this cross dressing persona, but he has had many great accomplishments in his fifty plus years in show business. He stood side by side with Red Skelton on Red's live T.V program in the fifties. He starred along side Burt Reynolds, Dean Martin, Jackie Chan,and Dom Deluise in "Cannonball Run" I & II and has many other roles in countless projects, both as director and actor, to his credit. He also co-sponsors a famous LPGA tournament in The Glass City every year. Check out his credentials here, here and here.

Alright back to my story.

Pixie got tickets to an OBTA meeting through her work and we got to attend the "Business dress" breakfast with 148 other lucky guests. The combined age in the room must have been close to 8,000. I am not saying that there was a plethora of old people, but there were a few who have known Farr's since the beginning.... of time. Plus, nobody thought it was funny when I showed up in a tropical pattern dress with a Carmen Miranda fruit hat on. Hey, they said "Business Dress" and and since Farr's business is the comedy business, I thought he would get a kick out of it. Apparently he wasn't in a jocund mood that morning because with a nod of his head two burly body guards "escorted" me out of the building. They proceeded to "explain to me" Mr. Farr's distaste for "funny guy's" bothering him with kitschy acts during the most important meal of the day. After I awoke, I discovered Pixie had brought me a change of clothes, kindly leaving it next to my mashed fruit hat.

Back inside, the breakfast was fantastic! If there is one thing I love more than free food is a buffet of free food. I had my fill of french toast, scrambled eggs, bacon, hash browns, orange juice and more bacon. They had fruit and cold cereal as well, but health food makes me sick so I stuck with the bacon.

Mr. Farr spoke briefly after breakfast. The president of Davis College presented Mr. Farr with an honorary Associates degree in Fashion Merchandise Marketing with a minor in something else equally witty, though I now can't remember what it was. Then we all left the breakfast hall and made our way to the Lucas Room in the grand Hilton Hotel for the OBTA conference. Farr spoke fondly of his past achievements, his rise to fame and his wife's cleavage, making the crowd laugh with every tale. He then had a brief question and answer period. I have to say that I was disappointed he didn't speak on anything remotely related to Business. That, after all, was his obligation as the keynote speaker at a business meeting. Maybe he forgot where he was. But his many humorous stories made up for his dementia.

After the Keynote speech was over we actually got our pictures taken with Mr. Farr. He is an extremely nice gentleman; waiting patiently while everyone groveled at his feet for an autograph and a picture. Pixie and I had one of the lucky student winners from Davis College take a picture of us with Farr. Then as we were walking away, Pixie noticed the picture was blurry, so we turned around shoved the people who had waited patiently behind us out of the way and demanded another picture with Farr. We had her take a third one for good measure. This last one turned out the best.



He was quick witted and for a man his age only had to use the bathroom eight times during the hour long breakfast. I'm impressed. What a time we had listening to his stories about cross dressing, the war, and oh yeah, the stuff he did for M*A*S*H. It was exciting to meet an honest to goodness celebrity from Toledo. One who hasn't married a curious little man and joined a cult.