Memorable people, played out like revues of old movies have touched my life as life imitating art, or art imitating life. When the song by Ben E. King came out in 1955 "Stand By Me" it became one of my favorite songs. In 1990, when it became the theme song in the movie, "Stand By Me" it tugged at my heartstrings with its sentimentality. The image of boys walking down the railroad tracks brought back happy childhood memories as I walked down those same tracks in years gone by with my brother and cousin, and sometimes friends. Days of walking tracks, picking wild blueberries in fields along them, we would wild away our summers, bonding and making memories.

Memories of climbing fences, stealing apples from farmer's orchards, getting chased by beebee guns. We would rummage garbage dumps for discarded cardboard boxes, pieces of wood, old wheels, tires, anything to make go-carts which would rival modern day ATVs. When reruns of the Our Gang in the "Little Rascals" ( 1955) would come on television, I would go back in time to play out what wonderful scenarios Our Gang got into.

Our clubhouse was a gigantic cardboard box with a hole cut out for a window. We would spend lackadaisical days hunting for glass soda bottles, redeeming them for 6 cents and sharing an orange popsicle or buying a bag full of penny candies at the neighborhood 7/11.

I had my first date with my first boyfriend at the premier of "What Happened to Baby Jane?"
We sat captivated by the trials and tribulations of Bette Davis and Joan Crawford. Only the audience was more intent on watching us than the movie. We were only 12 and the movie was adult rated. We knew why the scrutiny when we got home and faced the wrath of Khan.

When wrestling matches came to town, my brother and I would attend. Often we would run into our own version of the "Elephant Man" ( 1980, with Anthony Hopkins and John Hurt) a drunk with an extraordinarily big distorted head who hung around the train station near our home. He was always friendly but never bothered us.

Then there was Herbie, the friendly eccentric who rode the pride of his life, a bicycle equipped with a basket to carry his big portable radio. Come rain or shine, he rode that bicycle proudly through the streets of my home town, music blaring....Years later when I came home from college, he would still be riding, with a newer bicycle and a bigger boom box. These were the people who colored my landscape when I was growing up.

We

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