"We are asking that members refrain from asking Michael for autographs when he is at Meadowbrook," writes Meadowbrook general manager John Cadigan. "You can send things to the pool and we will include it in his fan mail pile, but we would like Meadowbrook to be a 'sanctuary' type place for him to train and feel comfortable and at home."
The newsletter does note that Meadowbrook plans to put on a "Michael Phelps day for members to meet and greet and get things signed." No date has been set.
Losing a grand old pal
At 90 years old, Anne Morton Kimberly says with a wry laugh that she's "had time to be widowed twice."
The lifelong Republican - her first husband, Rogers C.B. Morton, was a congressman, interior secretary for Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, then commerce secretary under Ford, and chairman of the Republican National Committee - seems to have outlived something else: her allegiance to the GOP.
I called to ask about a fundraiser she had hosted at her Easton home Friday, the first she'd ever thrown for a Democrat. She said the event raised more than $25,000 for Frank Kratovil, a Democrat running for her husband's old 1st District seat.
"I was crazy about Wayne Gilchrest, and I think he's one of the best congressmen I've ever known, and I was so horrified when the Republican Party decided to do everything they could to defeat him in the primary," Kimberly said. "I decided I would support Kratovil, and I ... met him and heard him speak. He is a centrist, which I am, too. He's good on the environment. He's good on pro-choice. He's good on lots of things like that."
A spokesman for Andy Harris, Kratovil's Republican opponent, declined to comment on the event, which was first reported on Politickermd.com.
