I saw that Cher was a guest on the latest episode of The Graham Norton Show. As she seems to have been around forever, I looked up her age and she’s only three years older than I am. Well, I feel like I’ve been around forever.

As I recall, way back in 11th grade when we had our initial meeting for the morning shows and decided to call ourselves the Irregulars, the very first song that we planned to play was “I Got You, Babe” by Sonny and Cher. I don’t know why I remember that, but I do.

But I also recall the time years later in 1991 when I returned to C&T (the Directorate of Clothing & Textiles). The details of that return don’t matter right now.

At the time I was very much interested in IBM’s personal computer operating system OS/2, and having more freedom to do what I wanted to do, I managed to get permission to go to a three day OS/2 show out in Palm Springs, California. It was being sponsored by a magazine that specialized in OS/2 coverage and it featured vendors showing off their hardware and software products that worked with OS/2 as well as a series of seminars on various aspects on the operating system itself.

I remember arriving in Palm Springs and getting a rental car to drive to the hotel, and what impressed me about the drive was how uneventful it was. The other drivers on the road seemed so much calmer than their counterparts on the Schuylkill Expressway in Philadelphia.

Anyway the OS/2 show, or conference or seminar or whatever it was, went well, and when it was over I got in the car again to drive back to the airport.

When I boarded the plane, the pleasant woman sitting next to me struck up a conversation, and then she noticed the fellow sitting just a couple rows in front of us on the opposite side of the aisle.

“That’s our mayor,” she said.

So I looked, and sitting there was Sonny Bono.