Terry Berry: Chafe Not in Peace

Terry Berry died.

Run over by a train? What the hell? How come no one lets me on to this stuff?

To explain: Berry was an Abilene oddball. He walked all over town, usually without any rhyme or reason. He just walked.

But nobody would have cared save for the fact that he always, always walked all over in town in hot pants.

(The link above includes a link to a fine photo essay Ron Erdrich did on the guy. You need to check it out. Words don't do it justice.)

I recall my first sighting. I was waiting for my burger to get done at GW's on South First. Out the window, on a blazing hot May day, a man walked across the parking lot. His socks were pulled all the way up. He was wearing sunglasses and a cheap baseball hat (the kind with the foamy front). The rest of him was covered by a yellow and black striped shirt and a tight and high pair of jean shorts.

I stared a bit, then looked around to see if everyone else was looking.

Nobody else even bothered reacting. They'd lived in Abilene longer, and gotten used to it.

The thought later hit me that a Terry Berry sighting was one of those basic stepping stones to becoming an Abilenian, up there with eating barbecue at Harolds.

"I finally saw Terry Berry today!" was something I heard from a lot of the people in the newsroom.

One city candidate put Terry on his campaign web site. One high school held a Terry Berry-lookalike contest.

There were obvious questions as to exactly where he made his money, but no one ever really delved into that. He seemed like a nice guy (to those who met him, I never did), without any animus towards people.

He loved the attention. Hell, we all do (he wrote in his blog). But he mainly struck me as one of those eccentric types. The kind of people you see at the end of a newscast, when they stuff in a story about some old man who stood at an intersection every morning for 30 years and waved at every car that passed by. Just wanted to be friendly, make sure people knew about him.

Abilene's a little less without him.