Tuesday, March 14, 2006

They are out there....


It was January 3rd, and I was at LAX waiting at the curb to check my bags in on the way back to San Francisco. I was in a fairly long line to check in the curb, but it was far better than the lengthy line serpentined back and forth inside the terminal. I was in my own zone, tuned into my i pod and watching the hillbilly girl two spots in line ahead of me flirting and fawning over the hot guy standing in front of me. I tried to figure out if he was someone famous, but based on the entertainment trivia I know he wasn't ringing any bells for me. I got bored watching the show between hillbilly girl and hot guy so I tuned out and looked around.

Something caught my eye near the stop sign at the curb. It was a white sticker afixed to the pole of the stop sign. I squinted the best I could (which I hate to do - hello crowsfeet!), but couldn't make it out. I had to wait until the line crept forward so I could see what the white sticker said. Once I could finally read it, it was a black and white graphic of the face of Andre the Giant - undoubtedly the largest man ever to be a professional wrestler/actor. The sticker said that Andre had a posse. Now, as Andre is no longer with us, I was perplexed as to why there may be a posse out there. If there is then lets hope they are a positive posse rather than a n'er do well posse. I snapped a pic to commerate the thought and then moved on to check in my bags.

Fast forward to the first weekend in March. I was visiting in Minneapolis and was driving down Lyndale Avenue in Uptown with my pal Bud, chatting away. As we waited at a stoplight at the corner of Lake and Lyndale, my eyes were caught by a large black and white image on the wall of a building, above Big Mike's Sub Shop. I cried out to Bud "it's the posse!". Bud's head whipped around from side to side looking for a band of marauders (assuming I spied some sort of crazed group coming down the road toward us). What I was pointing to was the large face - about 5 feet tall - of Andre the Giant, the same picture that I saw on the sticker at LAX.

After seeing Andre's face again in Minneapolis, at first I was amused, then pensive. I'm still curious as to what this posse is up to...hopefully good - rather than no good.

If you experience a posse sighting - let me know.....