When they talk about brushes with fame, I consider a morning at Sidney Airport on Vancouver Island, among them. It happened in the early 2000s. I’d arrived for my flight to Toronto early. I’d gone through security and arrived at my gate, when there sat John Turner, the former prime minister of Canada, reading a newspaper and waiting for the same flight.

Never intimidated by celebrity and always attracted to political figures, I sat down near him and said something like, “I’ll bet, since your retirement, trips back East are a whole lot less stressful than when you were prime minister.”

“You’re absolutely right,” Turner said with a smile. He turned to me and added, “but they’re still awfully long.” (more…)