I was engaged for years to the daughter of a character actor. He was a fascinating guy, starting out as a studio actor for Warner Bros. and graduating into a TV series and then a long, long list of character performances. He was on Twilight Zone, Perry Mason, Andy Griffith, Alfred Hitchcock, Dragnet and I don't know what all. But it's always been a pleasant surprise to see him show up on one of those programs, glasses, big eyes, professional.

Brings back memories of a different time. Different people. To his family he just had a job, it was nothing special, but I was always in awe when he dropped Henry Fonda's name, or said that Broderick Crawford gave him that cane, or that he might have left his wife for some ingenue if she weren't so damned dumb. The family photo room had Elvis, Pat Boone, John Denver, John Wayne, etc., and so on. I'd wander in there but it was regarded as unseemly to hang out looking. It think it was because it wasn't THEM, they were folks whose breadwinner had an interesting job.

The last time I saw him was a deja vu moment when I walked past a TV with Twilight Zone on. There's a bit of a jolt as a tsunami of memories hits, then flows past and the mundane is left in the wake.