Parents always tell you either that you're related to someone famous or that someone in your family was good friends with someone who is famous. Something like, "Your great, great, great, great uncle went to school with George Washington!" Even if this were true, you know very well that your great, great, great, great uncle and George were probably three grades apart and didn't know each other from Adam. But as long as your great, great, great, great uncle could point to George's picture in the yearbook, that proved they were best friends and everyone would thus believe that some of George's genius had rubbed off on him.

In the 1980's, my grandmother used to boast that she was in the same graduating class at Miami University with President Bush's mother. Of course, at that time Mrs. Bush was Miss Pierce, and if George hadn't become president, my grandmother never would have remembered Miss Pierce was ever in her class. And as far as I know, if they were in the same class, my grandmother never told anyone, "There is this girl in my class who I swear, someday, will bear the president of the United States."

So I suppose it was natural that my mother, following in her mother's footsteps, would have a decaying coconut on the bookshelf in her living room. "This coconut was taken from Ernest Hemmingway's yard in the Florida keys!" Mom says. "You know, your great uncle was a good friend of Mr. Hemmingway." Right. If my great uncle had been a real friend of Hemmingway's, I'm sure Ernest would have given him the coconut so he wouldn't have had to steal it from his yard.

Not far from the coconut in the living room is a chair no one is allowed to sit on. This esteemed chair is from the house of General Ulysses S. Grant, of whom we are possibly, somehow, remotely related to. At least that's what my mom and my grandmother believe. And this makes us possibly, somehow, remotely related to his chair. So strongly did she feel this call to her roots, that my mother was going to name me, not after the great Ulysses, and not after the chair, but after the doctor who delivered the baby Ulysses! I nearly became "Roger" just because Dr. Rogers had delivered this baby. Well, not only because he delivered the General, but also because it turns out that the General and the doctor were related too. My mother reconsidered at the last moment, however: the moment I was born. That's because she suddenly had to come up with a female name. Luckily the chair-maker wasn't a woman.

Reader Heather Hayes, who grew up in Los Angeles, says her mother always claims to see famous people. "Once it was one of the Beach Boys eating dinner at Carl's Jr., once it was 'Wally Cleaver' from "Leave It to Beaver" taking a walk in a local neighborhood; and yet another time it was a newscaster in the local grocery store," Heather says. "Well, the rest of the family always seems to disagree, and we always will tell her to go ask them if it's really them. Half the time she doesn't, and the other half she does, and finds out she is wrong. But it doesn't stop her from being adamant that these are really 'stars.'"

Last week in the airport, her mother said, "That's HER! That's HER!"

"Who?" Heather asked.

"I don't know, but I know it's someone famous! She looks familiar. I swear!"

"Well, how can I agree with you if you don't even know who it is?" Heather said.

"I know it's her...I just don't know who exactly it is...just wait. I'll see her again on TV and I'll show you."

She phoned Heather the next day and said, "I saw her on a commercial. See? It really was her." Of course, Heather just rolled her eyes.

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