I was in the grocery store, at the prepared foods counter and the server was acting really friendly.  It was after work, I was a little tired, so I was looking for something easy to fix.  I chose shepherds pie.  The pieces were so big that Anne and I could just split one serving.  So the server is acting so very friendly, that I manage to raise myself from my end of day lethargy.  As she hands me the pie, she says, “Have a good evening, Mr. De Niro.”  Then it all clicked, months ago this same serving lady had told me that she thought that I looked like Robert De Niro, the movie actor.  Both then and now she had tried to convince her co-worker of this observation.  I’m just glad she sees me as the De Niro in Heat and not in The Untouchables.  De Niro put on thirty pounds to play Al Capone.

This is not the first time that people have ascribed my likeness to that of someone in show business.  During college, my roommate tagged me with the nickname Radar, as in Corporal “Radar” O’Reilly the character of the clerk as played by Gary Burghoff in the TV show Mash.  Even further removed in time, the woman that agreed to become my spovely-louse, use to see a likeness in me with the young Dustin Hoffman, young as in Little Big Man.  So far these movie star comparisons have been with actors that were at least contemporary.  One can only wonder what comparisons await me in my golden years.