Actually it’s closer to 1 a.m. and Betty Buckley is buckled up and bundled up in the front seat of my car. And there’s plenty of sound from the pavement. It’s limo lock—after the Kennedy Center Honors Gala and with hundreds of power brokers yearning to be set free from their annual gridlock of the gargantuans.

I am a lucky guy. Eight years ago I got a simple one sentence email from my dear friend Patrick Gossett. It read "perhaps you’d like to join us this year at the Kennedy Center Honors." He and Howard Menaker had been volunteer escorts for years.

I walked into a rehearsal to hear the Alexandria Chorus rehearsing "Mame" for Angela Lansbury. I was hooked. Of course, you have to start in a pecking order. My biggest task that first year was to load a bus of singers.

Now in my eighth year, this volunteer job creates for me the most vivid memories of Washington, D.C. I’ll ever know. Most thrilling was time spent backstage with Julie Andrews during the Carol Burnett tributes. Most embarrassing: asking the concierge where to find a "Gentlemen’s Club" for Kid Rock’s entourage. The concierge raised an eyebrow atme as if to say "and what exactly will YOU do at a topless bar?" I assured him it was for "a friend."

From loading a bus, to buckling up Betty Buckley...quite an eight year ride it has been.

This mere mortal is allowed to walk in these clouds as a talent escort volunteer on a mid-winter night’s dream. The concept is simple. The talent that fetes the honorees are always in town in force—Broadway and Brits, dancers and divas, Hollywood and (this year) Dollywood. And all need to be shuttled from rehearsals and receptions and ultimately to the performance on Sunday night.

Five little surprise parties honoring the five winners take place on stage for the actual performance and the undertaking is mammoth. All this talent converges on the capital where the guests perform for socialites, senators, secretaries (as in state, interior etc.) and Supremes (as in court justices).

Back to buckled up Betty. Two hours earlier she had sung the immortal lyrics from Cats, the ones I used to title this column, in tribute to Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber. She brought the house down. (Hopefully you saw it telecast later on CBS) I was the proudest escort waiting in the wings. Supper followed where the donors who pay handsomely, mingle with the mighty talented. And mingle they do.

As we departed the Kennedy Center, Betty was stopped by a fan and as she spoke to her, up walks Ethel Kennedy. She quietly asks me "Do you think she’d mind if I said hello? I just loved her song." And I said (amazingly without my knees buckling) "I’m certain she would LOVE to say hello to you Mrs. Kennedy." (HELL-O-O-O, YOUR NAME IS ON THE BUILDING!)

So Betty finishes her chat, turns to me and I say, "Ms. Buckley, please say hello to Mrs. Ethel Kennedy." Betty extends her hand and warmly says, "Mrs. Kennedy, it is so nice of you to stop. We actually met in Hyannis Port years ago. I was working with Donald O’Connor in Boston doing Promises Promises and your children invited me sailing."

So here was the nicest performer I’d escorted in a decade, speaking to a Washington institution, who had been polite enough to ask if she could intrude. If only her legendary family were treated with such kindness.

I picked Betty up the next morning and was of course asking her all about Donald O’Connor and sailing with Kennedys. And her lovely assistant said, "You know, Betty, you are Forrest Gump! You simply have to write your memoirs!"

We pulled up to check her bags curbside, and for a fleeting moment I imagined myself hopping the plane to Texas with her, following her around the ranch with a tape recorder and beginning the Betty Gump journal.

Noon. Lots of sound from the pavement. Work awaits. Damn that mortgage.