Adrienne: These came to us in letters, cards and e-mail, some the week Charlie died and some
just this summer. We've shared them with each writer's permission. Some made us cry and more than a few made us laugh,
and a couple told us things about our son we're still deciding whether we wanted to know. Thank you, all of you.
Craig Homan roommate, sophomore year
Charlie had a poster of the Gettysburg battlefield over his bed with every regiment marked in ballpoint, and he would
explain it to anybody who sat down on the bed, including a pizza delivery guy one time, who stayed twenty minutes. He
was the only person on our floor who went to every single class. He also went to every single party. I don't know how he
did both. I was the one who called you that morning, Mr. and Mrs. Willis, and I want you to know he wasn't alone for one
minute, from the time I couldn't wake him up to the time they took him in. I rode in the ambulance. I held onto his foot
because it was the only part of him I could reach. I've never told anybody that.
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Ryan Sours roommate, sophomore year
He owed me four dollars for a pizza from the week before. I'm a teacher now, fifth grade, outside Pittsburgh, and on the
first day every year I tell my class I have a friend who owes me four dollars, and that I'm never going to collect it,
because then I'd stop thinking about him every time I order a pizza. They think it's a weird story. It is.
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Alex Elder intramural team, 1994–1996
Our team was terrible except for the goalie. That's the honest truth. Freshman fall we won the championship 1-0 and the
other team had something like fourteen shots, and Charlie stopped every one of them, including one he caught with his face.
He got up with a bloody nose and yelled "THAT'S WHAT I'M HERE FOR," and we all lost it. We retired his number. Well, we
can't really, it's intramurals, but nobody on our team wears 1.
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Terrance Roberts intramural team, and the dorm floor
I organize the Charlie Cup now, every April. Twelve teams last spring. The winners get a trophy that's a pair of old yellow
goalie gloves spray-painted gold, glued to a block of wood. It's the ugliest trophy on campus and every team wants it.
Charlie would have hated losing it.
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Carolyn Hopkins lab partner and friend
We were lab partners in Earth Science, which we both took because we heard it was easy. It wasn't. He drew little cartoon
soldiers in the margins of every lab report, and the TA started grading them too, out of ten. He averaged about a seven.
When I had a bad week freshman year he walked me to the campus diner and bought me pancakes at two in the morning and
didn't ask me anything, just talked about the Battle of Antietam until I laughed. I still can't eat pancakes without thinking
about the Battle of Antietam.
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Mary Francis friend, history department
He was in my American history survey and he always sat in the front row and always had a question, and the professor
always looked happy to see his hand go up, which you can't say about most people who ask questions. I got the vaccine
the week after he died, and so did about half our dorm. I made my little brother get it before he left for school this
fall. Thank you for the page. I sent it to my mom.
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Richard Cedeno Professor of History
I have taught for thirty-one years and I don't often remember a sophomore's term paper three years later. I remember
Charlie's. It was on the farmers whose fields became the battlefield at Gettysburg, and what happened to them afterward,
and it was better than some theses I've read. He'd come to my office hours to argue with my comments, politely and at
great length. I told him in January of that year that he ought to think about graduate school. He said he'd rather teach
high school, because that was where people decided whether they liked history or not. He was right about that, too.
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Geraldine Fritts his high school history teacher
Every teacher has a handful of students who make the job worth doing. In thirty-four years Charlie was near the top of
mine. He did a report on the Underground Railroad in Pennsylvania in eleventh grade that had footnotes, and nobody had asked
for footnotes. I retired last June. On my last day I found the cover page of that report in the back of my file cabinet,
with a cartoon soldier on it saluting. I took it home.
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Joey Feeney his youth soccer coach, 1983–1988
I put a lot of seven-year-olds in goal over the years and almost all of them cried and wanted to come out. Charlie looked
around, put his hands on his hips, and asked me if he was allowed to use his hands now. When I said yes he said, "Okay, then
I'm staying." He was the only goalie I ever had who'd talk to the ball when it was coming. I don't know what he said to it.
It usually listened.
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Alisha Willis his sister
Mom said I should write something for this page and I've started it about forty times. So here's the short version. My
brother taught me to ride a bike, drove me to my first dance, told off a boy who was mean to me in ninth grade, and gave me
the worst Christmas presents in the history of the world, every single year, on purpose. I took a year off after he died, so I'm a junior in college now. I'm
a history major. I'm going to teach. You can guess why.
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Adrienne: If you knew Charlie and you'd like to add something, please write to us at
[email protected]. It doesn't have to be long. It doesn't have
to be serious. He wasn't.
Back to Charlie's page
Last updated September 7, 1999
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