I didn’t wear the fez all night.
But I did to make an entrance. It helped ease the entry into an elegant dining experience at a posh Greenwich Village home — a dinner party to celebrate Katherine Lanpher’s birthday (as readers of this blog will know, she and Barbie are the same age, though Barbie hit 50 first) — where I knew I would be going solo among luminaries.
Why a fez? You see, it was a gift. I acted as defacto fixer for a reporting trip when I was living in Egypt. With my experience as a producer, I became the go-to guy on the trip, and was dubbed Duff Daddy. The fez (along with a very fun trip with three great and talented people) was my prize.
At Katherine’s birthday dinner, luckily someone else had a camera. I was designated photographer for the evening, so there are no other pictures of me. If you look at my photos, it’s as though I was merely a phantom witness to the scene, like a Soviet-era politico who fell from grace and was airbrushed from all public images.
Thanks to KT, who was a delightful person to sit next to at dinner, there is proof of my existence. Albeit, with a fez on my head.
Kelly Bancroft says she “gets Susan Boyle,” the YouTube sensation and newly minted megastar of Britain’s Got Talent. They come from former industrial towns devastated by unemployment, they both have lovely singing voices, and they both think a makeover isn’t necessary.
Two weeks ago, I flew to Houston to join a charter flight that carried 111 WWII Vets from IAH to Washington to visit the WWII Memorial on the National Mall. They also went to Arlington National Cemetery and watched the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknowns. I reported a 
Among the veterans I met were decorated soldiers, bomber pilots, an Army nurse and a Navy WAVE. One soldier, Marco Barelas, was one of Merrill’s Marauders, the long range penetration special forces who fought against Japanese forces in northern Burma. The 86-year-old Barelas told me his unit marched nearly a thousand miles in the Burmese jungles, and he walked the Burma Road for 16 miles barefoot. “My feet were all to pieces and bloody,” he said.
Anne Watt trained as an army nurse in hopes of being stationed near one of her four brothers who were serving in various theaters of battle around the globe. Dreaming of an assignment overseas, she was stationed, instead, in Arkansas, where she trained to attend soldiers in the event of an invasion of Japan. That, thankfully, never happened. The war ended, and all four of her brothers came home safely.
When John Daro was wheeled in by his guardian — son-in-law David Carr — he waved his arms like airplane wings. “Army Air Corps!” he haled as he glided past a row of applauding visitors, standing in honor in the airport concourse to give the vets a proper send off. “Just like the old days,” he said. I knew immediately this was someone I wanted to meet. “I was in a B-29!” he said with an jaunty inflection. He was a farm boy who always wanted to fly, and ultimately landed a spot in the pilot’s seat of bombers in an elite squadron.
Iris and Richard Howes both served in the war, and met two years after in Japan. They married in 1948. Iris signed up for the WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service) in 1942 and served as a communication specialist. Mr. Howes was in the Army Air Corps and survived a crash landing during a paratrooper mission.
On Sunday, I got to see — from a couple hundred feet away — the rotating service structure removed from the launchpad of the Space Shuttle Atlantis. Then, on Monday — from a further distance — I witnessed the launch of the shuttle toward the heavens.
Craig Duff Blogs 