Matthew Osborne
The last few weeks have seen the passing of two prominent world leaders – both of whom saw major powers through the entire Cold War – in Queen Elizabeth II and Mikhail Gorbachev.
When we first posed the question in our newsroom of whether anyone in Habersham County had a connection to the queen, I was skeptical.
Who in Northeast Georgia has met the sovereign of Great Britain, someone likely among the top few famous people on this planet?
Then I remembered Gorbachev. Likewise, what are the chances that anyone in Habersham County has met Gorbachev?
Then I remembered that I met him.
Gorbachev was kind of a weird world leader while I was growing up in the 1980s. Is he our enemy? Then he’s our friend? For a while, we weren’t sure, but the Cold War was a fascinating time in our history.
Of course, as everyone knows, the Cold War was ended by Rocky Balboa when he scored a 15-round knockout of Ivan Drago. He then proudly uttered the words that carried us into a new era of peace.
“If I can change, and you can change, everybody can change!” Balboa told a partisan Soviet crowd to thunderous applause.
Now, the last two paragraphs depict fictional occurrences, I understand that. But the sentiment was there. They even had a Gorbachev lookalike sitting with the politburo watching the fight in the movie.
When I went to school in Washington, DC, famous world leaders seemed to pop up everywhere.
We had on-campus speeches by the Dalai Lama, Bishop Desmond Tutu, Vice President Al Gore (dating myself here), the Canadian prime minister and more. Oddly enough, I was never interested enough to attend these forums, until one day I finally got a ticket for one of the speeches – when Jerry Springer came to speak.
(OK, so that is not a world leader. What do you want from me? That show was big in 1998. I had so many questions, but alas, it was not a public forum, just a lecture.)
One day, though, my buddy Mike who was far more politically-minded than myself told me Gorbachev was coming to sign his book at Barnes & Noble downtown. In order for us to get in line in time and wait for our turn to meet him, we would have to cut French class that morning.
Have to? It was my genuine pleasure to cut French class, as I was not doing well there anyway.
We got in line and sat on the sidewalk for a few hours, then the line started to move.
We were peeking around bookcases trying to get a look at Gorbachev and that famous weird spot on his head. We wanted to see if he was interacting with anyone or just blindly signing books and moving on.
I was a little in awe just because of the history this man had been present for, and he might be the most well-known non-sports figure I have met.
Name drop time, my top two famous meets by far are Muhammad Ali and John Wooden.
The dropoff from those two to No. 3 is quite significant.
We finally got to him, and he signed my $30 copy of his gigantic book. He smiled and shook my hand. He was pleasant and engaging, but somehow so without really saying a word. I just remember enjoying meeting him and obtaining a piece of historic memorabilia.
My son recently expressed an interest in Soviet history, and I told him to read the Gorbachev book and give me a report. He took one look at its size and was hesitant to devote that kind of time.
Confession, I have not read the book all the way through, either. OK, hardly any of it. OK, I started and about 10 pages in, a bird chirped and I lost interest.
I haven’t read the book about Pope John Paul II and his role in the Cold War either, which was written and given to me by Carl Bernstein of Watergate fame. (Met him, too.)
So I guess I am interested in history, but I am looking for the Reader’s Digest version.
Maybe one day, my world will slow down and I will read some of the books on my shelf, instead of just watching “Rocky IV.”
Matthew Osborne is the editor of The Northeast Georgian. Reach him at 706-778-4215 or editor@TheNortheastGeorgian.com.