Low Profile (24)

I’ve grown accustomed to people not recognizing me, particularly if they haven’t seen me for a few years, as I’ve put on a few pounds. (“Few pounds” as in I have to carry my “love handles” in a sidecar.) I’ve gotten used to reintroducing myself, even to relatives. This doesn’t come up often, as I don’t get out much--I’ve generally kept a low profile.

But occasionally, usually when my wife thinks I need to be aired off, I’ll be in line somewhere and run into someone, who will give me a very blank look. I’ve learned how to deal with it: I say: “Hi, I’m Danny, your double first cousin once removed.” (There’s a lot of that in my family.)

Or, I’ll say to some youngster, “I’m your Great-Great Uncle, which means your mother is the daughter of one of my grand nieces.” Usually people will start moving away from me when I get into these sorts of discussions.

I’m careful what I say about second cousins, however; I was once under the delusion that I had second cousins. Apparently, I don’t. What I have are double first cousins once removed in some cases and just plain first cousins once removed and sometimes twice removed. I draw the line at twice removed; after that, you’re only “kissing cousins” or something.

I can usually convince even distant relatives that I am who I say I am. Where I run into
trouble is when I talk with non-relatives who know my siblings, but draw a blank when it
comes to me. (I think this is accounted for by being the youngest of seven children
with a ten-year gap between me and my brother Jack, who preceded me as the baby of the
family.) They’ll say: “No, we don’t remember you. Were you adopted or something?”

A conversation like this sometimes makes me doubt my own identity. I’ve thought of returning to my old hometown of Hidalgo to see if anybody remembers me. It’s true we left Hidalgo when I was eleven, about 50 years ago now. I’m sure none of the original settlers are still living; they have probably passed over to that great Wagon Train in the Sky, and are even now being watched over by Ward Bond.

I can see myself poking around Hidalgo just to see if anyone recognizes me. But based on my last visit it’s probably not a good idea. It seemed like a ghost town. I thought about knocking on somebody’s door just to see if they were any signs of life.

What was strange was that Phyllis, my wife and driver, and I didn’t see any people out on the street or in their yards. I decided what we had run across was just a movie set of a small town with false fronts that would fall in if you pushed them. That probably nobody lived there anymore. I was pretty sure we had stumbled into a forgotten Twilight Zone episode.

I could hear the Twilight Zone theme—it was time to run before the Rod Serling voice over came through: “This is a story about a man looking for himself in the little town where he spent his boyhood. Will he be welcomed? Will he be hailed as a conquering hero? Or has he just entered The Twilight Zone?”

Finally, just as we were getting ready to leave town, we saw a little girl playing in her front yard. I thought about stopping and asking to talk with her mother. But with Rod Serling’s voice in my head I asked Phyllis to drive on for fear we would never see Kansas again.

Phyllis didn’t think that stopping to chat was a good idea anyway. The little girl would have been warned about talking with strangers, or even worse, a middle-aged man trying to establish that he had in fact once lived in his hometown.

On the way home I explained to Phyllis what probably would have happened. I would have asked the little girl’s mother if she remembered the Dunne family. She would have said that she did; she would have named over all my siblings.

“And which one are you?” she would have asked.

I would have answered, “None of the above.”

She would have said, “Didn’t know they had you. Did they adopt you later?”

I would have said, “No, I was the youngest; I lived in this town my first eleven years. I used to play cowboys, always had my gun and holster set on. Had a Shetland pony that used to run off. I was a Cub Scout. Went to grade school here. I lived just down the block.”


“I remember my mother talking about the pony; she said the Dunne boys were always trying to get it back in the barn”.

“So your mother remembered me?”

“I guess she thought the pony belonged to Jack and Jim. I wonder why she didn’t mention you?”


I would have explained, “I was keeping a low profile”.