Mr Anthony Mackie

So the date of this post will appear as May 5th 2020, but in reality this post goes back to March 18th, 2017. Ian, Sean and I are attending our 2nd Wizard World at the Cleveland Convention Center. Captain America: Civil War had been released the previous summer, the World was waiting for Avengers: Infinity War and we were looking forward to seeing Anthony Mackie, aka the Falcon.

I had decided if we were going to get autographs to remember these trips, I wanted it to be something unique. I also wanted something that years from now would remind the boys of me as well. So I made up a scratchboard of Mackie as his Avenger character Sam Wilson the Falcon. We timed it perfectly, there was really no crowd as we approached Mr Mackie. Sean walked up holding the board and asked if he could get it autographed. Now if you don’t know Sean, he is my no fear character. As he set the picture down, Mackie’s response was, “Did you draw this?”

Sean was “Oh yeah sure, absolutely.” Until the Avenger’s gaze wore him down and grinning sheepishly my 11 year old says “No, my Dad drew it.”

The ice was broken and the conversation just rolled, with Mackie calling Sean out for trying to take credit, but redeeming himself by having good hair. He told Ian as big brother he had his hands full keeping Sean in line. He asked me what I did and when I told him I was a high school art teacher he said “Bless you, my brother is a teacher.”

Meeting a celebrity idol is always risky, you can easily be disappointed, but that was not the case here. We were talking to a Star who’s demeanor could trick you into thinking he’s your next door neighbor. You would want to yell over the fence, “Hey Anthony! the boys and I have an extra ticket for the Tribe – Tigers game, want to go?” and he’d be happy to dodge a day of cutting grass to catch the game.

Here is a guy sitting at the top right now enjoying it like a little kid. In his panel discussion he answered a question by saying “When I grow up I want to be Wesley Snipes. Passenger 57, Blade and the greatest movie character name in history, Willie Mays Hayes. I’m available for any of the remakes.”

Again, Sean the attention seeker, popped up in the panel question line to ask if it got annoying filming the on your left scene around the Mall. The hundreds of people in the room didn’t matter, you’d have thought it was just Mackie talking to his little buddy. We were fans going in, but leaving we were fans for life. And since I’m writing this in retrospective I can add that April 26th, 2019 three of us lost it when Cap’s ear piece crackled and we heard…

“On your left.”