From the Vault: Jesse Jackson, Pete Fountain and My Mother - Kenner Star 2005

    I know you just can’t wait to get to the part in this column that explains the connection between two national celebrities and my mother, so here we go.
    Years ago my mother, Lucille, was in town and we lunched at atrium of the Hyatt Regency. Somehow the conversation got around to my mother “seeing things.” 
    “You know, Eddie,” (she always called me “Eddie,” and there wasn’t a thing I could do about it), “sometimes I think I’m seeing something when I know I can’t be.” I didn’t know what to make of that comment, but I did know that my mother’s concentration was not the best.
    “Whatever do you mean, mother?” I asked.
    “Well, I think I see somebody who couldn’t possibly be here.”
    “Who is that, mom?”
    “Jesse Jackson.”

    Jesse Jackson? I turned my head to see the table just behind and across from us, and sure enough, there sat the famous, somewhat revered, civil rights activist, Jesse Jackson. (His star was considerably higher in the sky in those years than it is today).
    I was impressed with my mother’s celebrity spotting, but she was just as surprised as I was that this man was the real Jesse Jackson. Deciding to impress her right back, I went over to his table and explained that my mother didn’t really believe he was Jesse Jackson and would he come over and say hello, which he did. “Eddie” was a hero to his mother.
    Some years later, I was working at WWL radio with a midday talk show. I got a chance to interview lots of celebrities from all over the country, but my favorites were the home grown variety. I always enjoyed having Pete Fountain on the show, and he was always happy to be on whenever I needed him. The thing I admire about Pete is not his musical talent, which we all know is considerable, but his humility in the midst of being a bona fide famous person. He never misses a chance to make fun of himself or help somebody else.
    For instance, I was talking with him on the air about a new CD, The Best of Pete Fountain, and he said, “You know, they’re going to follow that up with the Second Best of Pete Fountain.”
    One day I mentioned to him on the air that my mom was in the hospital, seriously ill,  and she was not happy. I explained that mom was upset that her roommate had lots of cards from well wishers on her bulletin board, while my mother had nothing. Pete agreed with me that it was indeed humorous that mother was more upset about an empty bulletin board than whatever it was that put her in the hospital. But Pete put the information in his mental file.
    After the show he asked me for the address of the hospital my mom was in up in Syracuse, New York. I thought it was nice that he would send her a card for her bulletin board, but I had not reckoned with the resourceful Mr. Fountain. Several days later my mother phoned me and told me about her wonderful bulletin board, filled with cards and letters from Pete Fountain and his friends and family. It seems that after he left my show, Pete got on the horn and had everybody he knew send my mother a get well card.  He even sent her a drawing of himself by the famous caricaturist Al Hirschfeld.
    Mom died a couple of years ago,  very close to Mother’s Day, at the age of 90. She was a simple country woman, who had no dreams of meeting famous people, but I’m gratified that before she died, she got to have close encounters with two honest to goodness celebrities. And while Mr. Jackson’s star may have dimmed a little, Pete Fountain’s continues to shine, not only for his music, but for his generous heart.