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LETTERS TO MY HIGH SCHOOL NEWSPAPER Charlie Nevins
We're all losing more and more friends these days, and of course each of those friends is special to us. What made Charlie special to me and to our little gang of neighborhood boys was the cheerful, passive charm he had about him. He never asked to come along, but we never went anywhere without first looking around to see if Charlie wanted to come. We were drawn to him like that. There are children, I've since learned, who are just like that—who through no deliberate effort of their own, or even being aware of it, somehow become everybody's favorite. The chosen one.
"Can Charlie come out and play?"
Remember how we used to say that?
I said that—we all said that—to Charlie's mom a thousand times, growing up. He never came to our doors, we always went to his. He had that gift.
"Can Charlie come out and play?"
Charlie Nevins. Never Charles. But sometimes Charles-A, if his mom was calling him.
The A was for Audie, after the war hero/actor Audie Murphy. But no hostile child's hand ever touched the brow of our Charlie.
Years and years later, when he wrote me two letters from Vietnam, from his bunk on a Navy Swift Boat, he signed them "Charles-A".
But at our 35th reunion he was "Charlie" to everybody again.
I got hold of him over in Beaverton a couple years ago, and I'm glad I did.
Safe journey to you, old friend. We chose you and you didn't disappoint.
TDK '65'
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