What Ever Happened To...?

You know how people like Marilu Henner have those amazing memories that can recall details of every moment of every day?  I’m not one of those people. 

I’m terrible with he said/she said accounts of talks.  I can give a good summary, but if you want precise quotes, I’m not the one to deliver.  Names escape me.  While I’m shaking a hand, meeting a new person, I can feel the name walk right out the door as it’s being delivered.  However, I never forget a face.  I never forget a person.  I don’t even forget the meat of conversations.  It’s just the details that are fuzzy.

There are people who have crossed my path for the briefest moments that have stayed with me for years.  Whether they realized it or not, they affected me and I often ponder where they are and how they are doing.  Tiny things remind me and I wonder “what ever happened to …”  Usually, the people I am most curious about are the people who were the most unusual and most fleeting.

When I was a small child, as we walked from our house to the local swimming pool, we had to pass a tiny ramshackle house occupied by Charlie.  Today, he’d probably be featured on an episode of Hoarders, but in those days, he was just the eccentric old man sitting on his porch, watching the children walk by.  I know how that sounds but, as I remember it, there was nothing creepy about him.  Certainly, I remember that he wasn’t exactly clean.  I remember that he could be quite grouchy with the older kids, but I also remember that those kids who got the grouchy guy incited the grouch in the first place.

For those of us who looked beyond the trash pile and who smiled at Charlie, the reward was a warm toothless smile and – sometimes – a small token of friendship.  Maybe a plastic army man or a piece of a toy that he found in a junk pile that he thought we’d like to have.  I remember the boys finding things on their walks that they would bring to Charlie.  In hindsight, I can see that he was probably autistic or had alternative brain wiring but in those days, he was just simple Charlie.  He was an old man then. Still, I often wonder whatever happened to Charlie.  What happened to his house and “treasures”.  I imagine that he probably died alone and his house was dozed and his treasures buried and that just makes me terribly sad.

In Pennsylvania, we had no shortage of characters swirling about our family.  Many still make cameo appearances here and there but a few passed through never to be heard from again.  Crazy Larry desperately wanted to be part of our clan.  I think he originally had eyes on my mother but realized that was not going to happen.  That didn’t stop him from showing up randomly with bizarre attempts at endearing himself to us as a whole.  To be clear, ‘Crazy Larry’ was not our nickname for him.  It’s the way he introduced himself.  But the name definitely fit.

He would show up, unannounced and uninvited, and spring into the room with joyful chaos.  He followed us to a movie theater, paid our way in, and asked people to move seats so we could all be together.  He showed up in tennis whites with extra rackets and dragged us to courts to teach us how to hit the ball.  He showed up on my birthday with a valuable, stolen duck as a gift for me (a story for another time) and I loved that duck for the 3 days we had it before finding the rightful owners.  I have no idea what happened to Crazy Larry, but I think of him on my birthday and I hope he found some peace and happiness and perhaps a family of his own.

My brother had a friend, Charles, who was the son of vaudeville-style entertainers.  He was a soft sweet soul who worshipped Jim Henson and dreamed of one day being a puppeteer.  He followed that dream as far as Florida and the last we heard, committed a stupid crime, desperate for food, and the result was a horrible accident that landed him in jail.  The thought of this beautiful kid, with his loving heart, being caught in this tragic cyclone of events that ripped his dreams from him breaks my heart and I think of him every time I see the Muppets or a happy guy doing a happy puppet show.

At a party in Florida, I met a guy who called himself (p)SAM.  This stood for Psychedelic Andy M.  He was a bit of early Bobcat Goldthwait and a bit broken little boy.  I suppose I must have been kinder to him than others, because he latched himself on to me and appeared in front of me at unusual times and places.  He was, I guess, my very own Crazy Larry.  I don’t know what ever happened to pSam, but I hope he found some happiness and dropped the PS from his name.

Countless fragile children have passed through our station.  One family in particular has lingered in my memory.  Their abused and battered mother had nothing left to give so we gave them the hugs and attention that they craved and couldn’t get at home.  My fear is that they grew up repeating the patterns they knew.  My hope is that they snapped out of it and broke free.  Wherever they are, my wish for Randy, Maryann and KC is that they know love and peace.

Time marches on.  People come and go.  But even the most seemingly insignificant encounter leaves a fingerprint and we’ll never truly know what another human being can mean to us or – maybe more importantly – what WE can mean to THEM. Let’s all agree to be kind when we can.  Share a smile when we can.  Charlie did it for us.  If he could do it, we all can, right?