I was walking west on Durant crossing Telegraph a block south of the UC Berkeley campus (see map below) when I saw a couple of good-looking yellow labs, probably less than a year old, crossing in the other direction.
I was so focused on the dogs that I didn’t notice until I had passed them that they were being walked by none other than the chancellor of the university, Nicholas B. Dirks, and his wife.
Gee, I wish I had gotten a photo with him but rather than run back across the street after him like a nut, I walked north to Bancroft and turned right to parallel the way he was walking on Durant. At the next street, Bowditch, I turned right again toward Durant to see if I could intercept him, which I did.
I’m staying at the Berkeley Lab Guest House, a university facility . . . when I got back to the place, I showed my Dirks photo to the guy at the front desk.
“Recognize this guy?” I asked. “Not me, the other guy.”
“No.”
“It’s Chancellor Dirks.”
“I’ll have to Google him.”
He reminded me of the guys asking Jack Nicklaus for his security badge at the Masters.