Memories of Charlie Finch

"Charlie always lived on the edge, then again, he had to."

That is how I began my eulogy of Charlie Finch. As I got up to speak I looked out on the small assembly made up of mostly fragile looking old men, some with canes and some with equally frail looking wives to steady them as they had for years. The only bright spot in the gray group was the little girl who lived on the other side of me. Her parents had just given her a roll of Wild Cherry Lifesavers as incentive to be good, just as my parents had done to me.

Standing behind the lectern I thought to myself how does a person get so far in life, be known by everyone, and yet nobody really knows him. I was asked to deliver the eulogy because I had been his neighbor for about the last 20 years. There had to be someone who knew him better. But I suppose you tend to keep to yourself when you are different from most folks. I then took a breath and delivered my opening line, which was greeted with a small, warm grin for all in attendance.

Most of you probably aren't familiar with Charlie Finch. You see, Charlie was thin, and I don't mean skinny. I mean thin. Paper thin in fact. About, as thick as three playing cards stacked up. None of us know how he got that way, figured he probably was asked that all his life, and no one wanted to bother him. I always hoped that someday he might tell me, but, kind of late for that now.

I assume he always was that way. On one of the rare occasions that he spoke of his childhood, he talked about being a lonely child. Never did mention any brothers or sisters, or did he ever talk about his parents much. 'Bout the only thing I remember is he was talking about getting a bike, used of course, 'cause times were hard back then. He said a couple of the kids that he did kind of hang around with would put baseball cards in the spokes for kind of a motorcycle sound. 'Course Charlie didn't need a card, he would just put his hand in the spokes. Said it tingled more than hurt, like when your hand falls asleep. Unless he did it a lot, then his hand would be all sore and bruised. That, and he mentioned that no one would play hide and seek with him. I supposed he could just slide under the couch, or behind the 'frig, or just stand there, he would have been tough to see.

Charlie would talk about his college days once in awhile. I asked him once if he dated much in college and he said 'No, the girls all thought he was shallow.' I said to him he had to be a little more thick skinned. He said 'where?' He said he made some money in school being a model. Not a clothes model, but like a cardboard cut-out pointing at or holding a product. He did say he loved to scare little kids. Just stand still 'til they walk real carefully up to him and he would jump out and grab them. Anyway, he never finished school 'cause he dropped out at the end of his sophomore year. Mentioned something about a late spring party and making a kite.

He ended up being a locksmith after the post office job didn't work out. He had started as a janitor, but was moved up to maintenance after they installed the first automatic cancelling machine. Seems the machine wasn't working right and someone jokingly asked Charlie if they could send him through so he could maybe see what was wrong. He said the ink tasted terrible and it took a couple weeks to get the ink off his face. He quit shortly after there was talk about promoting him to "Inspector" and rolling him up in a mailing tube and mailing him places so he could see and feel how the mail was being treated. Anyway, he had been a locksmith as long as I knew him. Even after he retired people would still bring locks and stuff to his house. Most times he did it for free, some sort of pay back for when he was working. His specialty was unlocking houses and he always said he felt a little guilty for taking people's money. Said he would go to the house and fiddle around with the knob until the people got tired of watching and when they looked away he would just slide himself under the door, or stuff himself through the mail slot, and unlock the door.

Now Charlie was a pretty civic minded person. He belonged to most of the clubs in city, though not a very active member. But if the cause involved kids in someway, he would be all in on that. He just loved kids, the little neighbor girl even called him "Thin Grandpa Charlie". Everybody was pretty surprised though when they went through his will after he died. He left a whole bundle of money for a park for the kids of this city. He wrote 'you can save a lot of money when you can just wear a picture of clothes instead of actually having to buy the clothes'. People were also surprised to read that his real goal in life was to be a cop. He went on to say that he had to quit the police academy because the hand-to-hand combat instructor was going to fail him because all Charlie could do was give him paper cuts.

It took a couple of city council meetings to decide how to honor Charlie. It was decided to laminate Charlie with a picture of the police uniform and place him in a cardboard cut-out painted up to look like one of the police cars. The whole thing would then be placed near the new park as a reminder to people to slow down and watch out for kids.

After his death, Charlie Finch got to realize his life's dream. He finally became part of that thin blue line.

Find more by Daniel Popple in the Author Index.

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