Some memories sit untouched for fifty years and then show up without warning. This one arrived yesterday, while I was thinking about our time in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, DC.
Before moving to Montgomery County (and living there twice!), I spent some time at the IBM Washington Systems Center in Gaithersburg. The WSC had a very large computer room filled with the various IBM mainframe models that were current in that era.
I was then working for IBM in San Francisco, and one of my projects was responding to an RFP from the State of California for the Teale Datacenter. As part of that effort, we had to run a large benchmark supplied by the State to demonstrate the power and performance of the specific IBM configuration we were proposing. I spent a month at the WSC preparing for it and stayed at the Holiday Inn across the street.
One morning, most likely in 1973, I was waiting for the elevator in the Holiday Inn to go down from my room. The doors opened and, lo and behold, there stood Cher, with Sonny by her side. I didn’t quite know what to do. She’s such a striking person. But I stepped in and joined them for the trip down to the lobby.
I have no idea what I said to them, but I do remember that they were very friendly and seemed delighted to see me. When the doors opened in the lobby, we parted ways, never to see each other again.
A quick bit of searching revealed this about their tour:
Sonny and Cher performed at the Shady Grove Music Fair multiple times throughout its run, including a series of dates in 1973 during the height of their hit CBS variety show. Local attendees recall Steve Martin serving as their opening act during this period.
The Holiday Inn on Montgomery Village Avenue in Gaithersburg was where headliners stayed when performing at the Shady Grove Music Fair. Because the venue was just a couple of miles down the road, virtually every major act, from Sonny & Cher and Bruce Springsteen to Stevie Wonder and Tom Jones, was put up at that hotel during their week-long summer runs.
They were there to play Shady Grove. I was there to run a benchmark. Same hotel, same elevator, very different billing.