Haines Logo Text
Column Archive
May 12, 2020:

SLEUTHING

Bruce Kimmel Photograph bk's notes

Well, dear readers, sometimes being a sleuth on the Internet is kind of fun.  I just thought you should know that, should you have some time on your hands, sleuthing-wise.  I just looked at my own hands and don’t see any time, but I’ve been doing some sleuthing anyway.  I occasionally think of someone from my long-ago past and I get interested in where they may or may not be and so I begin sleuthing on the Internet and in my cases I end up finding folks.  Sometimes it’s them doing the sleuthing and finding me.  But it’s fun if you have patience and I’ve been doing a bit of it during this pandemic.  It can, of course, result in finding out someone has passed on, and that’s happened, certainly.  And it’s been fun when I’ve found someone and we end up conversing – in fact, I’ve written about a few of those instances.  But I’ve come a cropper with one person, and I’ve been searching for years and years.  This was a young girl I knew briefly in my early Los Angeles City College years.  She was about fourteen back then and she her friend Robbie Herron used to hang out at the theater building, and they were fans of mine and so we became friendly.  I ultimately ended up living for a time with Robbie’s family, but the other girl, whose name was Caren Koch, moved away to Alaska in 1966 or so. I’m not sure of the first name spelling other than I do remember it started with C.  Might have been Caron or Carin, I suppose, but I think I’ve got it right.  Somewhere in a memorabilia box I have the program from a revue I did in 1965, I think, and I think she may have been in that.  The garage is once again such a mess and there’s only one memorabilia box there, while the rest are at the warehouse where the Kritzerland stock is, and that’s far from here.

Over the years, I’ve sleuthed quite a bit – here name and “Alaska” but nothing has come up.  I’ve checked Facebook but I can’t imagine she wouldn’t have gotten married at some point.  So, thus far there is not a single trace of her.  Even while I was writing this, a name popped into my head from forty-five years ago and I searched and found immediately that she’d died.  So, sometimes it’s easy and sometimes it’s not easy.  I once searched for two years for someone – in fact, if you read the opening chapter of Kritzer Time, you’ll know who it was. No luck at all until I finally had some – of course, she was going by her married name and I would have had no way of knowing that.  But something came up in a search – I think her brother or father – and by following that lead it led me to her.  I got in touch and we speak every now and then and she sent me some truly astonishing things back when we first re-connected, including a Xerox of a photo I signed to her.  So, I’ll continue of my search for Caren Koch and who knows if something might finally turn up.  I have no real memory of what she looked like and all I know is she was four years younger than I, which would put her at sixty-eight now.  And there you have my little sleuthing tale.

Yesterday was a sort of okay sort of day sort of.  I got eight hours of sleep, got up, did some work on the computer, saw that the UPS package had been delivered, so got dressed and went to the mail place.  I was hoping it was the hardcover books, but alas it was the ephemera they send me on every book – bookmarks, postcards, and business cards.  There were a couple of other small packages, too.  I came home, visited with Grant a bit, then began doing laundry.  I also ordered food – some Cajun place not too far from here.  I’ve had several po’ boy sandwiches over the years and really liked them, so that’s what I ordered – the description said you could get it with grilled chicken or shrimp – I opted for the chicken.  It said it came with pickles and pickled red onions, all good, and some remoulade sauce, which I like.  I also ordered a small side of mac-and-cheese, since Cajun chefs do that well.

The food arrived thirty minutes later.  The sandwich was so huge there was not actually a way it could be eaten as a sandwich.  But worse, they’d slathered the bread with mayo even though that wasn’t even an option or mentioned and it was disgusting.  So, I ate about a third of the meat, avoided any of the bread on which there was mayo (the bottom layer was free of it) and that was it.  The mac-and-cheese was also weird, and I only ate half of it.  So, pretty much a complete bust, this meal was, and it’s the last time I take a chance on any unknown jernt.  I felt quite nauseous after that and I can’t imagine I had anything over 500 calories.

Then the rest of the day was spent working on fixes for tracks and making sure our multi-singer singers had their materials.  I didn’t finish that until seven.  By then, it was really too late to watch anything, so I just did more work on the computer, had some telephonic conversations, and then took a nice drive.  I stopped at Rite Aid before coming home and got some Claritin-D, which I was about to run out of, along with some honey roasted peanuts to snack on when I need a snack.  Then I came home and listened to music and relaxed.  I made a small Red Baron personal pizza (400 calories) and this time I actually followed the instructions and it was MUCH better than the last time I made it.  In fact, I enjoyed it so much I almost made another, but I curbed my enthusiasm and didn’t.

Today, I’ll get up when I get up, then most of the day will be spent on the Kritzerland show and getting more tracks to people, making a show order, and maybe even writing some commentary.  I’ll eat something GOOD from one of my trusted places or I could make Wacky Noodles, I’ll hopefully pick up some packages, and then at some point I’ll watch, listen, and relax.

The rest of the week is more of the same and I think we’ll have a Zoom meeting with the musical director and then I’m hoping we can have a Zoom meeting with the singers who are on the multi-singer songs, so we can get everyone on the same page, I can see what they’re doing, give some notes, and then early next week they can start filming their stuff and getting it to us so we can make sure all the technical stuff will work. The solos are all easy, as they’re done exactly as we did them in the last show.

Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, get up when I get up, work on the Kritzerland show, make a show order, maybe write some commentary, eat, hopefully pick up packages, and then watch, listen, and relax.  Today’s topic of discussion: Have you ever done any sleuthing to find someone or something from your past. Tell us your stories.  Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, where I shall sleuth in my dreams.

Search BK's Notes Archive:
 
© 2001 - 2024 by Bruce Kimmel. All Rights Reserved