Another Farewell...

It's Sunday in the Northern Plains, and I'm sitting at my desk, surrounded by old pictures of days gone by.

Why?

Years ago (and have you noticed that all my explanations start with, "years ago"? I feel very eld just now) I worked the Outdoor Drama circuit, and it's not a bad living if you don't mind climate changes. Yes, it can be very hard to concentrate when it's 101 degrees on the stage and you're wearing leather and flannel. And yes, it can be reaaaalllly hard to concentrate when you can see lightning in the distance and you're wearing electrical equipment on your person.

But the people that work, REALLY work the outdoor stages are the hardest working people in show business.

Plug over.

Story begin.

Macon Ray was an Abraham Lincoln impersonator from Corydon Indiana. When I started working for the YOUNG ABE LINCOLN outdoor historical drama back in '93, he was there. When I stopped working there at the end of '96, he was still there. And when I went back to see it again in '99....still there.

He worked for about five minutes a night and brought down the house just be making an appearance. His job was to come out at the end of the show, to remind the audience of who the young protagonist of the play was to become. He'd quote a few passages from famous Lincoln speeches, take the last bow, and get this HUGE standing ovation.

He had the easiest damned job in the place.
And he was the easiest man to like.

Unpretentious, a veritable fountain of Lincoln knowledge, a great person with which to have a conversation about the Civil War era in American history, a risque sense of humor that you occasionally had to lightly censor to avoid lawsuits, an artist, a painter, and a man who made it a point to know everybody in the company by their first name.

My wife has placed a framed portrait of me over the fireplace in the basement of our house. She found it in my theatrical archive; it's one of those huge Tupperware containers in the storage room. It's a portrait of me as the character I played in YOUNG ABE LINCOLN. It was drawn by Macon Ray.

Macon passed earlier this week, after an illness. He will be missed by everybody who worked with him; everybody who ever talked to him for a few minutes; and everybody who saw him in his suit and stovepipe.