By Mike Johnson
Bill Murray said something in a recent interview that struck me as sad.
“I can’t walk down the street like you walk down the street. I miss that.”
He’s describing the burdens of fame.
A burden I have happily avoided.
I know it’s a burden because I have had fleeting tastes of it.
When you run a community newspaper, you’re recognized on the street.
When you’re the boss of fifty 7-Elevens, you’re recognized in the stores.
When you run a trolley tour company in a tourist town, you’re recognized downtown.
But that’s all “small fish in a small pond” recognition.
I’ve never been a big fish in a big pond.
Or desired it.
My vivacious, volunteering wife gets far more attention than me.
She has the social gene.
Writing is a perfect avocation for me.
I can ply my trade without leaving home.
Speak to people from afar.
Comfortably.
Out of sight.
When we were rehabbing a Minnesota hobby farm 800 miles away, I was struck by how pleasant it was to be totally invisible.
No one knew us and due to its remoteness, no one saw us.
When I close my eyes, I’m driving that old farm truck to the dump with the border collie in the passenger seat.
No one at the gas station notices the guy in ripped jeans, ratty sweatshirt and Yellowstone cap, pulling a chocolate milk out of the dairy cooler.
Going to an unknown town, where everyone was unknown, was delicious incognito.
That adventure lasted two summers and encouraged us to add more “farm” to our Wapiti home.
The passage of time, while living remote, erodes and erases more and more memories of my footsteps every day.
In that way, I am rich.
Poor Bill Murray will never experience that again.
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