Did I Ever Tell You I Drove Shimon Peres in a Motorcade?

This just in:  President Shimon Peres has just launched a new application on his Facebook page calling upon people all over the world to ask him any question they want.  Anyone will be able to pose questions to the president and he will respond to some of the top questions directly on his Facebook page in writing and with video messages.

Please just don’t ask this.

How cool is Mr. Peres?  The dude is NINETY and still totally with it.  And whether or not he is personally running his own social media campaign is irrelevant.  He’s agreeing to it all.  You can’t fake youthfulness.  By all accounts, he is always alert, friendly, and completely “all there” when making public appearances.

What question would you ask him?

As for me, I was privileged enough to have lots of up-close-and-personal time with him when he was just a boy (you know, 80).  Since you surely missed it the first time, inspired by my idol Bill Simmons (before most of us had even heard the word “blog”), here’s my running diary from 2003 when I chauffeured Peres for a day and a half as an employee of the Israeli Consulate in Atlanta, Georgia. What a surreal experience that was.  I didn’t know whom I was writing it for (a defunct website called “Jewsweek” published it for $50…not bad!) and I didn’t have any kind of polished voice or style but hopefully you’ll get a laugh out of it.

Go click!