“Sometimes I wonder, just for awhile… will you ever remember me?” — Tim Buckley, 1967
When I wrote a feature story for the Kalamazoo Gazette about then-Lt. Gov. Brian Calley, he assured that he remembered and flattered me as “one of the most unforgettable persons” he’d ever met.
Now we all know that politicians have a nasty habit of blowing smoke up the backsides of constituents, and I came up with a lot of examples to the contrary. I suppose we all want to be remembered for something.
But in 1995, when I took my wife and two children to my old stomping grounds of Croton, I stumbled onto Joanne Maurer Robinson, director of the child care center that occupied the former Croton School. Though I tried heroically to jog her memory when I told her I was one of her brother Tom’s earliest friends, she said he didn’t recall anything about me. I really freaked her out when I identified her childhood nickname of “Skeeter” and suggested she had been a cheerleader.
It was in 1986 when my WHS Class of 1966 had its 20-year reunion and special guest was German foreign exchange student Crystal Schneider. I interviewed her for a story in the Globe, and though I told her we were classmates for government and sociology, she replied that she didn’t remember me.
Former Congressman Howard Wolpe came to my wedding just after I left as editor of the Albion Evening Recorder, but years later when I landed at J-Ad Graphics in Hastings, he had me totally confused with former Hastings Banner editor Robert Johnston.
Mark Wakeman, WHS Class of 1965, is now “friends” with me on Facebook, but he has very little, if any, recollection of me during his high school years. He remains puzzled by how much Wayland High School lore I have mentioned on Townbroadcast.
Patricia Wisniewski, Class of ’67, has become a Facebook friend, but she has very few recollections of me.
I’ve had a few successes as well. “Speed Bump” cartoonist David Coverly of Plainwell remembered me and his start in politically cartooning at the Allegan County News & Gazette. Detroit Free Press sports writer Mick McCabe recalled an editorial I wrote about Milton “Good News” Barnes for the Recorder when he urged Albion High School to hire him as basketball coach.
I suppose that as we age we ponder just how we will be remembered by those who knew us and even those who didn’t.
But I have to remember the classic responses of ant-racist warrior Jane Elliott and rock icon Frank Zappa when they were asked what they want their legacies to be. Both said, “I don’t care.”
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