Hello Mr. Meijer, Meet the Baldwin Boys

Yes, I had another brush with a celebrity. This time it was Grand Rapids' own successful businessman and very generous philanthropist Fred Meijer. It happened yesterday morning. I was dropping off Ben for a sculpture class at the Frederik Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park (um, HIS gardens.) I didn't quite know where to go, but we ended up downstairs where the classes are usually held. The room was empty, but as we were leaving I almost bumped into Mr. Meijer coming out of the conference room across the hall. He appeared to be alone. I said, "Hello, Mr. Meijer, can I introduce you to the Baldwin boys?" I know, that's lame, I honestly didn't know what else to say. I nervously babbled on about how we love the gardens and how I used to work at the Meijer store on 28th and Kalamazoo. I ran the cafeteria upstairs there for about a year back in the early 90s, blah, blah, blah. He was so completely sweet and kind and wanted to know all of the boys names. He then reached into a pocket of his walker (sniff, it was sad to see him with a walker) and gave the boys a coupon for a free ice cream at the Purple Cow. I then continued to babble on about how I shop at the Cascade store and we love it and we'll go there for ice cream soon. The boys thanked him and we were on our way to find Ben's teacher! P.S. I didn't snap this photo of him, I found it on the Grand Rapids Press website.