Name Dropping

It was April 1998 that I sat at dinner next to a future member of the House of Lords. The occasion was a gathering in honor of Owen Phillips, a professor of environmental fluid dynamics. Phillips had made landmark contributions to explaining how energy from the wind transfers to waves of the ocean, and a symposium marked his retirement. I had finished my PhD work the previous year at Johns Hopkins, where Phillips taught. I had a class from him, which I remember for many things, but one was the form of his exams: 15 minutes in Phillips’ office standing in front of him at a chalkboard explaining things that he asked me to explain. I took the opportunity to return for the symposium, which included a dinner in Baltimore’s Peabody Library. The lectures earlier in the day were attended by a few hundred, but there were only a hundred or so at dinner, seated at small round tables. We were five at my table. Across from me were my PhD advisor and his wife. On my right was a geology professor, Bruce Marsh. On my left was Julian Hunt, a fellow of Cambridge’s Trinity College who had recently stepped down as director of the UK’s Met Office (their equivalent to America’s NOAA). It was a lovely evening conversing with those four. Finding himself next to a Mormon from Nevada, Prof. Marsh shared a story with us from his days as a young geologist working in eastern Nevada who went to Salt Lake City to buy a suit for his wedding. At this time I had been several months living and working in Los Angeles, and for my sake Julian Hunt had something to say about LA. He was a generous conversationalist who had something to share with each of us.

A year or so later, my boss in LA made a trip to the United Kingdom, and Julian Hunt was his host at Trinity College. After returning he said it was interesting how people there treated Julian Hunt. Hunt was an aristocrat of a sort that doesn’t exist in most countries. Trinity College has lawns that none walk on. But fellows can, and Hunt asked my boss if he would like to take a stroll on the lawn with him. If you look up Julian Hunt on Wikipedia, chains of links will lead also to entries for his father, a diplomat, and along maternal lines to his grandfather (physicist and barrister), his great-grandfather (biologist), and great-great-grandfather (biscuit manufacturer and MP).

Almost two years after I sat at dinner next to Julian Hunt, he was named a life peer by Tony Blair. Baron Hunt of Chesterton then sat with the House of Lords for the next twenty-one years. As a patriotic American, I don’t give much thought to Europey royalishness and titled nobility, but I still let it slip now and then that I once sat at dinner next to a future member of the House of Lords. I am confident that Julian Hunt has never told anyone that he once sat at dinner with me, but maybe he remembers that he did, which would say more about his memory than about how memorable I am.

All of this came back to mind leading me to write because a few days ago I was sorting through papers on my desk. One item which I threw away was a program from the Christmas lighting ceremony at the Washington DC Temple Visitors’ Center. I was not present at this event; it is something the Church’s international affairs people invite ambassadors to. A diplomat from the Phillipines spoke that night, and so did Elder Dale Renlund. My wife, however, was there as part of the choir, and she brought home the program. Before throwing away the program, I noticed that the opening prayer was given by Celeste Maloy. Adding to my surprise at seeing her name again, she was identified as the Honorable Celeste Maloy, member of the U.S. House of Representatives.

In the spring of 2021, after a couple years as a widower, I found I was ready to date and hopefully find a wife. In August I would meet Marleigh, the woman I would marry in April of 2022. The first step to meeting Marleigh was figuring out how to meet eligible women. The patterns of my life would not bring me into contact with them the way my life as a young man thirty years before had. My sister-in-law said if I wanted people to set me up, I had to let them know because no one was going to mess with my life unless they knew I wanted that. I thought about who of my friends was good with people and understood me and my late wife well enough to be able to recommend eligible women they might meet to me, and then I asked those people to keep me in mind. One such friend when I told her I was ready to date said I should use the Mutual app. I had seen other LDS-interest dating sites, and I had found the quality and yield for my area disappointingly minimal. I had also seen marketing for the Mutual app, and it was very much aiming for the young with everything an ironic joke. So I expressed skepticism to my friend, but she insisted, “No, you should try it. Mutual is where everyone is.” I was talking to her because I respected her judgment, so I heeded her counsel.

She was quite correct. Through Mutual I was able to meet several eligible women who were very much worth meeting. Though the marketing was aimed at the young, middle-aged people like myself were also using Mutual. The experience left me thinking about the importance of finding the focal points, be it a website or an annual gathering. Perhaps seven years ago one of those other websites I had explored had been a focal point, but it was not anymore. In another seven years maybe Mutual will have lost its appeal also, and those seeking romance then will have to find the new focal point.

The first of those women who accepted invitations from me to meet was Celeste Maloy. A point of commonality was that she is from Nevada. I sang her the state song when we met. While I waited at our rendezvous for Celeste to arrive, another woman arrived who appeared to be waiting for someone. I didn’t think she was Celeste, but to be sure I asked, “Are you waiting for a man from Nevada?” I decided to keep that in store if I needed a pick-up line in the future.

Celeste was working as legal counsel to Rep. Chris Stewart of Utah’s 2nd District. Two years after I sat at dinner with her, Stewart would retire from Congress due to health needs of his wife. He endorsed Celeste Maloy to replace him, and she carried out a successful campaign to do so. I knew nothing of any of this until this week, and her swearing in happened hours before the invocation at the temple visitors’ center. So now when I am in a name-dropping mood, I can say “Once I sat at dinner next to a future member of the House of Lords, and another time I had a date with a future member of the House of Representatives.”

After our dinner almost three years ago, I walked with Celeste back to the U.S. Capitol Building to continue her work. When I contacted her later about a next date, she decided against that, so my experience with her is limited to that one early evening. I find myself pleased that she is a Congresswoman because she has made a career of public lands issues, and I am glad to have someone in Congress who understands and cares about those things. When you live in a county that is over 95% federal land, so many things, like building a new school campus, become federal matters that require an act of Congress and unfortunately have to pass through the national political process. Celeste has lived that and made a career dealing with that. Besides that, an impression that came out in various ways is that she is a worker, so she will probably work diligently in this next job also. Lastly from my brief glimpse, she seems like a grounded person who has as much a chance as anyone of not letting her new authority harm her soul.

A peculiar musing this week has been: What if she and I had hit it off? Would that have derailed her from becoming a Congresswoman? Would I have pulled her away from Utah and turned her into an exile like myself? I have been a support to my wives in many pursuits, but a political campaign is hard to imagine me helping well with. On the other hand Celeste pulled off her campaign as a single woman, so maybe a husband who simply gave her a solid base at home to do her work would be support enough. That is what wives need for most things they do. Leaving me out of the hypothetical and supposing some other, better-suited Mr. Right, a successful Plan A as wife and mother likely would not have positioned her for this pretty darn good Plan B. It has been interesting to think on.

________________________________
Links to myself:
A Couple Photos for the Day
Plan A