I hope this happens to you some day. It happened to Mark Twain, I think. You know the story about Twain apparently seeing his obituary in the newspaper and then following up with his famous: "the reports of my death are greatly exaggerated."
In Sunday's Lima News Fred Steiner's name was listed under notable deaths. First, I pinched myself, then with keen interest, read Fred Steiner's notable obit.
Yeah, I knew it wasn't me. You see, I've known about the "other" Fred Steiner all my life. You'd do the same if you knew of another famous person with your name.
As a grade schooler I saw my name on the music credits of Perry Mason, Have Gun with Travel, Hogan's Hero's, Rocky and Bullwinkle and lots more. Just about wet my pants the first time I saw my name. Got used to it eventually, but it's still always exciting when my name pops up on the credits.
The crazy thing about his music is that I really like it. I can hum the Perry Mason theme all day long. Da, daaaa, da DA! Da daaaa, da, DA, DA! (pause) Da da da da da daaa da daaaa. Da daaa da daaa and so on.
As you might imagine, an elementary small-town guy seeing his name like that on a black and white TV screen...well, I sort of made a lifetime hobby of watching the "other" Fred Steiner. He was really a musical genius. I always wanted to meet him, but, as you might imagine, ringing his doorbell, "Hello, Fred, I'm Fred Steiner. I came all the way to Hollywood from Bluffton, Ohio, just to say I'm your biggest fan." It wasn't going to happen.
Once I met another Fred Steiner on the phone. He's the other, not-so-famous one. I was working at CSS Publishing in Lima at the time. The company operator called me and said there's a call that I'd better take. It was Fred Steiner on phone. He worked for the Cleveland Indians and was selling group tickets.
I told him who I was. It was pretty funny. He lived in Cleveland.
So, there you have it. Bet there's countless viewers out there with similar experiences. I'd like to hear them. In the meantime, maybe I'll make the Perry Mason theme my cell phone ring. Or, should it be Rocky and Bullwinkle?
