Larry "James Dean" ------

Larry "James Dean" ----- was a story in himself.  He picked me up hitchhiking when I was

18 years old.  I was in a little trouble and was anxious to get out of dodge.  I had eighty bucks in ones and fives and change rattling around in my pocket.  Larry was going to a local bar for a quarter draft.  A happy ending for a sordid tale.

 

I believe Larry's dad really helped him after Vietnam - when we met in '78 he had

a job, drove a truck, had  a wide smile, a happy little gleam in his eye and a place to

live.

 

He had an expressive face - he would introduce himself as Larry "James Dean" ----- and

you would look into the bright blue eyes of this big man 6ft something and know you had

met somebody that in another age had been a pirate or an old west sheriff or an outlaw or someone who stood on the front lines - a real swashbuckler. 

 

     Jim Dandy, he was, and he never let on how devastating life had been to him.

 

He did a few years in prison after Vietnam and he was doing construction work and

living with his dad and his brother when I met him.  His dad died - Larry was devastated.

His brother got the house and kicked him out.  It's pretty country around his old

neighborhood and he knew the woods and how to live in them and that's what he did

through cold Virginia winters in camoflauged lean-to's.

 

He told me about the fish he had caught and the deer he had stalked and he would look so happy - eyes far away and after a while I realized he didn't catch those fish yesterday but long ago when he was a boy maybe with his dad - maybe that's where he is now and damn I hope he is.

 

They built a grocery store that cut into the woods where he had lived and one cold winter's night he found himself, someone who had given his youth and his ability to function in society for his country, hungry.  He walked into the grocery store - got a loaf of bread and some peanut butter  - walked to the counter and said "I'll pay you when I  can" and walked out.  He got 6 months for that and I wanted to thank the Judge.

 

It was about the kindest treatment he ever received in our town.

 

In '91 Congress was appropriating money for the homeless and homeless advocates threw

a rally in Washington D.C.  Larry went and I saw him when he got back.  He was

beaming.  He found that there's a bunch of homeless people out there and you

really aren't so alone.  As a matter of fact, you're in pretty good company.