Whatever happened to...

Indulge me here. This bit of nostalgia appeared on my desk the other day from some long-lost hiding place that only Mom knew about, I guess, since she's the one that appeared it.

This is a scene from 12th Night - a Shakespearean comedy presented by ACU (ACC) Theater in the early '60s. The cast includes yours truly as Sir Toby Belch; to my left Leon Valentine as Sir Andrew Aguecheek, Connie Bennett Greer as Lady Olivia and sitting across, Robert Silvey as the jester Feste. According to a synopsis of the comedy, "Sir Toby and Sir Andrew disturb the peace of their lady's house by keeping late hours and perpetually singing catches at the very top of their drunken voices." No doubt that's exactly what were were doing as the photo was snapped.

I could not help but wonder "Whatever happened..." to the friends from this picture, and that's where the indulgence comes into play. I realize that I am the only person reading this blog who cares about the whereabouts of these folks - apart from the folks themselves, I guess. And maybe Mom (but not all that much). But it was a very interesting exercise to try finding them using the Internet. No fair using the ACU Alumni directory.

I know where I am, so that wasn't hard. I will say that it appears I have always been partial to beards. And good food and drink. It also appears I have no Internet footprint. None.

Leon Valentine was a totally unique individual; talented, witty, and skinny! You can't really tell in the picture, but my arms were bigger around than his legs. To see him in Elizabethan-style tights was hilarious. At one time Leon was trying to gain weight and was drinking a dozen malts a day with no effect whatsoever. He also was the original pin ball wizard; whenever you wanted to find Leon you first checked the pin ball machine at a long-defunct eatery across the street from Sewell Auditorium. I found only one reference to Leon on the Internet - his obituary in 1999.

The summer we married, we returned to Abilene a couple of weeks before school started in the Fall because of my work. We couldn't move into our apartment yet, so the company put us up in a motel. James and Connie Greer had finished school but Connie was due to deliver any day and they were just waiting around for the baby to be born. We all had time on our hands so we sat in the air-conditioned motel room and played Monopoly for days on end. Mom remembers this differently, but it's my blog so we'll go with my version of the story. James was in the Philosophy Department at Pepperdine for a time, but I find them now in Port Orchard, Washington.

Bob Silvey was fairly easy to find. His biography on his blog says, "I'm a writer living in Berkeley, California. In the course of several careers, I have programmed classical music for WPLN-FM in Nashville, taught Shakespeare at the University of California in Davis, acted and directed at the Berkeley Stage Company, worked as a statistical demographer for the US Census Bureau, and managed corporate documentation standards for Hewlett-Packard." He was sort of into all that stuff back then - except for the Census and H-P. Robert was singing protest songs in the '60s and if you read some of his posts it is plain that he is still singing protest songs, especially when it comes to the war in Iraq and the previous administration.

The unseen director of this production was a graduate student named Don Wilmeth (son of P. D. Wilmeth, author of the classic A Father Talks to Teenagers. Okay, probably not in your library, but it was a CofC mainstay). Mom especially remembers Don; while she was driving his borrowed car one day someone ran into it. A simple Google search on Don returned a number of references to a distinguished career in theater at Brown University and numerous awards and achievements. Don is retired in Keen, New Hampshire.

And just think, I helped launch his career, as Sir Toby Belch.