Mission Accomplished: Long Ago And Far Away, Walter Charen Finds Us

the insert is Walter as a fourth grader in Mrs. Feuer's class.

We had given up searching for this KV favorite. I see now my mistake. I had been searching using Walter, not Walt. As Marty recollects:

Walter's Bugs Bunny imitation has remained vivid to me through almost six decades.

Anyway, just the other night an email arrives from him. An excerpt:

From: Walt Charen, Subject: Very long ago and far away, To: David
The mind works in strange and wondrous ways. Hadn’t thought about the ‘number’ of our elementary school in decades. Then, all of a sudden, it popped into my consciousness – PS 177. I GOOGLED it, and what do you know, your name popped up! I moved away to Colorado after 5th grade. My dad had been accepted for a doctoral program after working as a high school teacher for many years. Anyway, I never returned to NYC. After two years in Boulder, we moved back to NJ, where I attended HS. Then, went to Rutgers, New Brunswick. Didn’t study pre-med, but went to St. Louis University School of Medicine despite that. Graduated with a MD in 1970. Did residency in psychiatry at the University of Connecticut. Practiced 14 years in Hartford, then heeded the siren song of arecruiter for Charter Medical, and took position as Director of a hospital on St. Simons Island, GA. Am still here. I retired from practice in 1996, and went to work full time for the advertising agency I started in 1993 on a part time basis. Medicine had become a struggle involving mountains of paper work, and little time for actually seeing patients. So, I quit. Got married in 1973, and remain happily so. I have two children. My son is 29. My daughter is 23. If you are interested in seeing how my creative impulses are being expressed in my current profession, you can visit our web site. I write all the scripts. I’ll attach a recent picture. Karen and I on business/vacation trip in the old home town last year. Probably won’t mean much, as lots of water has gone under the bridge, but maybe you’ll see some resemblance to an old memory. Hope you and yours are well, and would like to hear about how life has treated/is treating you.
Walt Charen