The celebrity next door

"I'd hate living here," Teen Son said on a recent Sunday afternoon. We had just taken a drive into LA, where I grew up.

"Why's that?" I asked.

"Because celebrities live around here, but you never get to see them."

I laughed remembering the time I chased after Robbie Benson in the parking lot of Bob's Big Boy in Burbank. And the time I got Donny and Marie Osmond's autograph at a taping of the Donny & Marie Show. And the time my longsuffering mother drove us to Pasadena and waited--for hours--to see Shaun Cassidy at a local mall.

Teen Son continued. "Yeah, I'd hate knowing they were around here, but never getting to hang out with any of them."

Minutes later, we drove up to the modest neighborhood where I grew up and saw a man standing outside of my childhood home. As my extended family parked in the old neighborhood, four cars in all, he watched us like a volunteer security guard. I decided to put his suspicious mind to rest, and quickly crossed the street.

"I grew up here," I told him. "We're just here to take a walk and do some reminiscing." His face relaxed, and he opened up like a steamed clam, launching into the neighborhood's latest and most juiciest news. After awhile I asked him who lived next door these days.

"Oh, her?" he said, nodding to the old clapboard house next to his. "She's a young actress on Boston Legal."

Yeah, my teen son would hate living there.