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1. Casey Cichowicz on August 12th, 2011 at 1:03 pm

   “He was the kind of guy who would do things without really thinking them through.”

   Oh no! I’m also the kind of guy who would do things without thinking them through. Staying away from chimneys from now on.

2. Sheila Ryan on August 12th, 2011 at 1:09 pm

   “He was always going off somewhere,” Robert Schexnider said. “He told me he’d seen every state in the country.”

   Cindy, I lost it when I came to the part about the carnival and the circus.

   Remind me to tell y’all about “Speedy” one day, if I haven’t already.

3. Joel Bernstein on August 12th, 2011 at 1:12 pm

   Worst christmas prank ever.

4. Daryl Scroggins on August 12th, 2011 at 1:34 pm

   If I were to write this, it would be a long description of a 14 by 14 inch square of sky.

   This is going to give me nightmares; I can’t get out of thinking about being trapped in such a place with a voice of smoke and one drop of rain.

5. Sheila Ryan on August 12th, 2011 at 1:39 pm

   Daryl, the entrapment got to me, too, especially in light of the recollections about his wanderlust and about his following the carnival and the circus.

6. Michael Smith on August 12th, 2011 at 1:42 pm

   “and jockey shorts with Schexnider’s name printed in the waistband.”

7. Sheila Ryan on August 12th, 2011 at 1:44 pm

   I’m now imagining him twisting his head, trying to crane his neck to see glimpses of each of the forty-eight states he’d visited.

8. Sheila Ryan on August 12th, 2011 at 1:45 pm

   Oh, I know, Michael. Grown men who have to have their names written on items of their clothing.

9. Michael Smith on August 12th, 2011 at 1:47 pm

   Schexnider is tough to spell. That could explain it.

10. Rick Neece on August 12th, 2011 at 4:55 pm

    Amazing an underwear waist-band would hold up after 27 years. Fruit of the Loom you think? Also, name: embroidered? or Sharpie?

11. Sheila Ryan on August 12th, 2011 at 4:58 pm

    Sharpie. I am certain. Printed by his mother. Or maybe someone who played a parental role.

12. Sheila Ryan on August 12th, 2011 at 4:59 pm

    Also, like Daryl, I know this is going to give me nightmares. If not actual REM-state dreams, then I know I will be imagining this as I lie in the dark tonight.

13. Rick Neece on August 12th, 2011 at 5:02 pm

    Oh, Jockey. I just re-read. Same diff. Good thing they didn’t think he was Calvin Klein.

14. Rick Neece on August 12th, 2011 at 5:08 pm

    Also, how was the waist-band found? Still hanging on askew to his pelvis bone when it fell into the fire-grate, at the dislodging of the fabric?

    Sharpies are marvels of the modern world.

15. Michael Smith on August 12th, 2011 at 5:10 pm

    Yeah, Sheila. I was just talking to a co-worker about it and she made a comment about how, if he was robbing the bank, maybe he got what was coming to him. I just looked at her, I can’t even begin to imagine how awful it must have been to die like that.

    Terror.

16. Sheila Ryan on August 12th, 2011 at 5:16 pm

    Yes, Michael. I read a couple of similar comments in connection with — what was it? the original Yahoo! post?, and I just had to quit.

    Yep. Right. A simple-minded man does a durn-fool act in a possible attempt to rob a bank, and he dies a lonely, painful, and utterly terrifying death — and he had it coming?

    It pains my brain that some people can’t imagine that far.

17. Rick Neece on August 12th, 2011 at 5:19 pm

    Also, this.

18. Daryl Scroggins on August 12th, 2011 at 7:09 pm

    Sometimes I get sinus congestion when I’m alseep, and it causes a kind of apnea that makes me dream I am trapped in some sort of trench cave-in or something like that. The last time I had that happen I woke gasping for breath and lay awake for a long time trying to remember the first time I felt like that. And eventually it came to me: Peter Rabbit stuck under Mr. McGregor’s fence. He had to sacrifice his lovely blue jacket to get himself free. I wish this poor man could have sloughed his jacket in a similar way.

19. Daryl Scroggins on August 12th, 2011 at 7:10 pm

    P.S. When Cindy came home she said this story was so sad that she couldn’t bring herself to comment on it.

20. Sheila Ryan on August 12th, 2011 at 7:22 pm

    Oh, Daryl. The image of Peter Rabbit and his little blue jacket. Thinking of that man and the horror of his death and, yes — if only he could have shed his shabby clothes and broken free.

    Also, it makes me think of William Blake’s poems about chimney-sweeps.

    Think of the skeletal remains of little sweeps. Stuck in the chimneys of London.

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