Tag: chuck munro

Halloween and Christmas were my Two Favorite Days as a kid, better than my birthday (I am not sure they were better than the occasional McDonald’s Food Days we had, because those completely nutritionally-incorrect french fries were like catnip to me, and that’s just the way it was).

But I digress.

Halloween: the day when, if we allow it, some part of our inside comes out to play. A big day in 60’s Tampa. What do you want to be? my mom would ask. Mostly, I didn’t know; so she let ideas float in the air for a week or so and then, if necessary, gently steered me toward something interesting (no Snow White plastic dresses from a bag for my mom!). She made most of my costumes (including a gorgeous tissue paper sunflower headdress on year).

My folks took me out at dusk and waited in the shadows at the end of the sidewalk so that I could go up by myself to the houses. Scary, sometimes. Then as I got older, I ran with a group of kids, with a group of parents wandering a block or so behind us, their cocktail ice clinking in time with their amiable conversation. Then those couple of magic years when we kids were old enough to go by ourselves; no one told us that meant we were on the cusp of being too old to go at all, and I’m glad. Those sorts of understandings come soon enough to me without the well-intentioned help of others.

And then there’s adult Halloween, which turns out to be quite a different beastie that asks a new question: What do you want to show? When we’re kids, it’s cool to be something we’re not. When we’re adults, if we’re lucky, we have the opportunity every so often to be something we are.

I spent Halloween 1986 with my friends Chuck and Karen in Chicago. We all went out to a dance at the local theatre company (just three blocks away) where we took acting classes together (and where I did theatre subscription telemarketing in exchange for a reduction on tuition, and lemme tell you, it’s a circle of hell so far down that they don’t even have a number for it yet). We had, as I recall, a grand night, and I got to dance to 80’s music in the actual 80’s, which does my head in just thinking about it.

There’s a lot showing in this photo, but I won’t tell you what it is.

Have a wonderful Halloween. Let something out to play.

I’ve known my friend Chuck Munro for more than 25 years. We met at the University of South Florida Theatre Department, where we were both taking acting degrees. We worked together in classes, and acted together in A Midsummer Night’s Dream as Helena and Demetrius, and I had the fun of being in the chorus of Jesus Christ Superstar when Chuck played Judas Iscariot. Chuck was handsome and talented (a great actor and singer). He had a beautiful smile. He attended to people in the oldest sense of the word — when Chuck turned his attention fully toward you, you felt as if you were his only priority for that moment. And he had a reserved charm, a sense of something held back behind that killer smile. We all fell in love with him.

He was one of my two close friends in college (I’ll be talking about the other one in a couple of weeks…) At that point in my life I had taken reserve to a new art form, but Chuck was someone I could always talk to. He was comfortable to be with. He made me feel smart and interesting and safe being myself, even when my self was really weird.

And he introduced me to the music of U2. For that alone he stands among the awesome people in my pantheon (grin).

When Chuck moved to Chicago, he lived for a time with me and my roommate until he found a place of his own. And with that place, a life of his own. I left Chicago in 1987 and we’ve never lived close to each other since. He came to my wedding, and I went to his, but really we are the kind of friends who speak maybe once a year — and it’s always as if we just talked yesterday. Our friendship doesn’t seem to operate on linear time. When I was in Chicago last year we met up — only briefly, because life is so damn busy — and I cried to leave him because he is still that special, still handsome and smart, a charming, questing soul with a killer smile and compassion in his heart for everyone.

Happy birthday, Chuck. I love you.