Unknown brushes with greatness
I've just had one of those "I was close to someone important and didn't even know it" moments. I was looking up the Wikipedia article on Barrington, Illinois, my hometown. I noticed that one of its most famous residents was Henry Paulson. I knew that last name. Amanda Paulson (whom I briefly had a crush on during middle school) was a classmate of mine and our valedictorian. Her father, I found out, is currently Bush's treasury secretary. He also served in the Nixon administration and was a bigwig at Goldman Sachs, a major investment firm. According to Wikipedia, his current net worth is about $700 million.
Does it surprise me that someone like this would live in Barrington? Not really. They have to live somewhere, and South Barrington (where they lived) is as ritzy a place as any in the country. Still, the fact that I have been to the treasury secretary's house (and probably met him at some point) is, to use a technical term, freaky. In some ways, it just reminds me that I grew up in a place where people have a lot of power--something I didn't really understand while I lived there. Wow.