Who would you choose?

by chuckofish

If you read a variety of blogs, you have certainly come across more than one of those posts where the writer asks the question: Who would you choose if you could have lunch with anyone? Usually they go on to tell you how they would love to get together with Audrey Hepburn, Princess Diana, Thomas Jefferson, Mother Theresa, Steven Spielberg and so on. Blah, blah, blah, boring celebrities. And, yes, I include Thomas Jefferson in that company. He would probably choose to have lunch with Marilyn Monroe.

Not that I’m judging anyone for their choices. Everyone is free to choose whom they want to choose. This is America after all! Come on.

Anyway, I’m sure you can guess who I would choose. Just in the last few days I’ve talked about Bob Dylan and Hilary Mantel and Marty Stuart–all would be charming companions at a meal. And you know how I feel about Frederick Buechner and Raymond Chandler. A conversation with them–to die for! As for movie stars, we’d need a big table to accommodate all my favorites.

But if we’re really talking about conversation, let’s invite:


Thomas Cranmer. He wrote the book.


General Sherman. He had Grant’s back.


U.S. Grant. He epitomized humility and courage. He had Lincoln’s back. And he was a really good writer.


Dorothy Rabinowitz. She tells it like it is in the WSJ.


T.E. Lawrence. He would be awesome, but we’d need someone to come along with us who could make him feel comfortable and draw him out of his shell–like Mrs. George Bernard Shaw.


Mary Prowers Hough, my great-great grandmother and the classiest lady to ever set foot in Colorado. I’d have a million questions for her.


J.D. Salinger. We could talk about Jesus over a glass of ginger ale in the kitchen.


Eudora Welty. We’d talk about stories and the art of writing them. I think I would like to invite


Shirley Jackson to come along too. The three of us would get along famously.


Saint Timothy. He received letters from Saint Paul containing personal advice which I take very personally: God did not give you a spirit of timidity!

Well, I’m sure I’ve left out some obvious choices. Who would you want to share a meal with? Alexander? Sargon the Great? Thomas Cromwell? Oliver Cromwell? Johnny Depp?