Slowly fading notoriety is an interesting thing that not many of us go through.
When I was mayor, I had 98% name recognition even if people thought my first name was "Mayor" and my last name was "Dave." I was recognized pretty much everywhere I went across the broadcast zone of Madison's TV stations.
I have to say over all that time, people were uniformly pleasant. There was the one time a couple behind us at the downtown farmers' market started talking loudly about the city "maybe needing to buy a gosh darn lawn mower!" during the summer I decided to cut back on mowing to save money. But that was pretty much it for the ugly confrontations.
But now, a year and a half out of office and completely off television, I get recognized less often, which I have to say is mostly a relief. Even though people were nice, it felt weird to always feel like somebody was paying attention to what you were doing, even when what you were doing was deciding to get the leaf lettuce or the head lettuce. Hey, he didn't buy organic! I like anonymity.
And the recognition I do get is getting foggier all the time. The other day I was in an elevator and this woman is looking at me closely. "Excuse me, sir," she said. "But you look familiar."
"I used to do the weather on Channel 3," I said earnestly.
"That's it!" she said. "You were great."
"Thanks," I said. "I enjoyed it."
And in fact I did enjoy the job even if it wasn't exactly the one she had in mind.
