One evening in November 1950 my mother asked me to pick up a bottle of sherry on the way back from work in my hometown of Green Bay, Wisconsin. She needed the wine to pour over the several fruitcakes that she had baked for Christmas and which were now lying on a shelf in our fruit cellar awaiting that little touch of alcoholic aroma to bring their flavor to a peak. She wanted the least expensive sherry I could find.

I went into a drugstore near where I worked, picked out a bottle (I remember it cost sixty-nine cents), and brought it up front to pay. The clerk, the brother of the proprietor, knew me and also knew that I was twenty—a year below the legal age for purchasing alcohol. He refused to sell me the wine:

“But it’s only for my mother’s fruitcake,” I said.

“Can’t help it. You’re too young. The feds are in town checking up, and we could lose our license.”

I began to lose my temper. I demanded the bottle of wine, citing a long (nodding) acquaintance with the proprietor, my father’s (nonexistent) influence with the proprietor, and my mother’s fruitcake’s (dubious) utter need for that sherry.

During this heated argument neither of us noticed a small, middle-aged lady with what we then called bottle blonde hair who was picking out some small items and listening to our conversation with some amusement. She approached the checkout counter with her purchases and interrupted the yelling match.

“Look,” she said, “would it be all right if I bought the bottle of wine and gave it to this young man? I’m late, and 1 want to get out of here.”

“No way, lady,” said the clerk. “That would be contributing to the delinquency of a minor.”

The lady muttered something under her breath and then turned to me. As she did, I began to realize that I had seen her somewhere before.

“Why don’t you wait for me outside?” she said.

And so I went out and waited on the sidewalk while she paid for her purchases, including my bottle of wine. And then, as she came out the door in the gathering twilight, I suddenly knew who she was. She was Sally Rand. I had seen her photo in an ad in the local paper the previous day. She was appearing in Green Bay for a few nights. My father had commented on it. It was Sally Rand all right. It had to be. She certainly looked older than her picture, but there was no doubt in my mind. And boy, was I excited!

For the benefit of those readers below the age of fifty or thereabouts, Sally Rand was an exotic dancer who had first achieved fame at the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair by