Name Dropping
The Maundy Monday Newsletter - This Week in History June 22 -28.
Living in Washington, DC, affords you the opportunity that you will probably run into someone who could eventually be famous a few years down the road. It’s important to note that the chances of you becoming famous are minuscule – writing a mediocre US History blog only takes you so far.
But this week, I want to highlight two men who are in the news a lot lately, and whose paths I crossed way back when, and do the biggest thing non-famous people can do in DC: Name Drop.
The first is Graham Platner- now the Democratic nominee for the US Senate seat in Maine. If you have heard about Platner, it’s probably because he has a controversial past – there’s a Nazi tattoo, and he communicated inappropriately with women about sex while he was married. You know, great stuff.
Anyway, I met Graham about ten years ago. He was dating a friend of mine, and we were celebrating a buddy’s 40th birthday by climbing into a bus and heading out to breweries. We were connected because of mutual love for history, especially Civil War history – and Graham had a picture of William Tecumseh Sherman as his phone screen saver.1
I remember us having some great conversations about the silliness of neo-confederates, especially with Sherman’s hometown, just 20 minutes down the road from where I grew up in Ohio, which is now flushed with confederate flags. I guess technically, he had the Nazi tattoo back then, which he never showed me, because that would have been weird. Anyway, I remember him as a nice guy. He dated my friend for a bit, then broke up with her and moved to Maine. She has never said anything bad about the guy. The only reason I bring this up is that she reminded me recently at the same buddy’s birthday get-together for his 50th.
The other guy in my life is the billionaire Ken Griffin. Back when I was working at the Kennedy Center, my job as a fundraiser was to secure those funds from wealthy people like Ken. Now, back in 2003ish, Griffin wasn’t the billionaire he is today, but he was still really rich, and he landed on the radar of the fourth-best fundraiser on the four-person fundraising team.
Ken and I spent one evening together- when he accepted an invitation to a dinner party before a performance of the National Symphony Orchestra. I had done a ton of research on Ken, and despite that, still to this day, I couldn’t tell you how a hedge fund works. But he and I had a special connection right at the beginning. When he arrived at the show, I grabbed his tickets and brought them to him. Here’s the exchange that I remember to this day:
“Here are your tickets, Mr. Griffin.”
He responded with: “How do you know who I am?”
I responded with “Because it’s my job to know who you are.”
Long story short – I set up Ken Griffin with some fun people at his table – Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, Sam Donaldson from ABC News, who is still alive by the way, along with others. I kept tabs on him, I’m sure I answered any questions he had, and at the end of the night, he turned to me and said: “Chris – you were great tonight. I feel like I need to tip you.”
I responded with “You can give me $250,000 to support the arts in this country.” This reply never left my head. I’m sure I just stammered out something like “It’s okay.”
Ken was a nice guy. He never gave us a dime, and we eventually stopped trying to cultivate him. I like reading about how intense he is about making money and, like all billionaires, how he gets incredibly defensive when any public figure brings up taxing them in some way.
The great thing about name-dropping is neither guy would remember meeting me – they aren’t regaling their friends with stories about our chance encounters. Graham isn’t telling people, “I met this guy, Chris Dake, and he wants to start Tecumseh Sherman March to the Sea tours in the South.” Nor is Ken fondly recalling “Chris Dake can grab someone’s coat with the best of them.”
Name-dropping doesn’t go both ways.
Okay, let’s get to what else happened this week. As a reminder, these events mark anniversaries ending in 5 or 0.
1. The first Scholastic Aptitude Test was given on June 23, 1926. Developed by a Princeton professor based on an IQ test given to soldiers, the SAT would assess high school kids’ ability to learn. I took the test twice – the first time I had the flu and didn’t do very well, the second time I felt fine and did worse than the first one. Great childhood memory I’m sharing right now. I’m confident Graham and Ken scored really high on this.
2. The Battle of the Little Bighorn took place on June 25, 1876. Another Ohio-born Civil War hero, George Custer, led the 7th Infantry of the US Army against the Lakota and other Plains Indians in what was known as the Great Sioux War, which played out from 1876 to 1877. Commonly known in history as “Custer’s Last Stand,” Custer and about 200 of his men were killed in battle. The Indigenous warriors were led by men named Sitting Bull, Two Moons, and Crazy Horse. They lost one commander, Lame White Man. I’m not kidding – that was the guy’s name. Bet you Graham knows this. Ken, however, doesn’t know much about losses like this – he makes ridiculous returns on investments from what I understand.
3. The Battle of Sullivan’s Island was fought on June 28, 1776. Days before the Declaration of Independence was published, 400 South Carolinians repelled the British Navy just outside of Charleston. The victory in the Palmetto State was a significant milestone that our British Overlords could be whipped. Platner seems like the type of guy who wrote a paper about this battle back in school – something no one else would know about, and I can’t help but think that Griffin would short-sell on the British Navy if he could have.
Did some more grilling this weekend – beginning on Friday in celebration of Juneteenth, I grilled two whole Red Snappers. They turned out okay.
Then on Saturday, I fired up a Branzino:
It did not turn out okay, so there is no after picture.
Finally, Anonymous and I hosted Father’s Day Sunday dinner for the DC Family. I grilled up some steaks, and we had baked potatoes and asparagus. It was a reminder of the Sunday dinners I had growing up. My Dad loved steaks.
We had great weather, and we pulled the TV out on Friday to watch some World Cup Matches.
Speaking of the World Cup, Anonymous, a few friends, and I are heading to Seattle tomorrow for the rest of the week. We have tickets for a few matches – Qatar vs. Bosnia and Egypt vs. Iran. I’ve never been to Seattle, so I’m looking forward to it. It will be nice to take some time off work as well.
Thank you for your continued support of Okay History! I’ll see you next week!
Okay,
Chris
Is was that – or he wore a t shirt. I can’t remember. Either way, it was awesome.