would ask anybody in the audience
at the festivals if maybe they knew a
way to get this film into Chad Everett’s
hands. That’s all he cared about.
Throughout that year, Ronnie would
call me up and he’d say, “You need to
send a tape to this person because they
might know Chad Everett’s daughter.”
I was starting to get kind of an-
noyed, to be honest. I was like, Man,
we went all the way to California. Why
can’t he just drop this whole thing?
And I was kind of annoyed with my-
self, too, because I had become teth-
ered to this dream of Ronnie’s.
On top of that, I had a version of the
dream that was a nightmare for me,
which was this: that Ronnie would
somehow meet Chad Everett ... and I
wouldn’t be there. If Ronnie were to
meet him and I wasn’t there, I didn’t
think I could live with myself. I hon-
estly felt that way. I was in this state.
Then one day I got a phone call.
There was a deep voice on the other
end of the line, and it said, “Hello, this
is Chad Everett.”
I said, “No, it’s not.” And he said,
“Yes, it is.”
And it was Chad Everett. He had
seen our film, and he liked it. He
liked it a lot. In fact, he agreed that if
we could get Ronnie to California, he
would meet Ronnie. And he would do
an interview with him. I hung up and
I drove three hours to Ronnie’s house,
and I said, “Ronnie, Chad Everett saw
the film, and he wants to meet you.”
And Ronnie said, “Oh, boy!!!”
For two weeks straight, Ronnie
couldn’t sleep. All he could do was
call me up and talk about exactly what
was going to happen.
Eventually, we fly out to California.
The whole way, Ronnie’s clapping his
hands and rocking back and forth. Ev-
eryone he meets, he tells them that he’s
going to achieve his biggest dream—
he’s going to meet Chad Everett.
I said, “We’re going to do this on a
beach, because it’s a big, wide-open
space.”
I think this is a good plan until
we get to the beach and I’m walk-
ing with Ron on the sand. At this
point Ronnie’s legs are really kind of
giving out, and he can hardly walk
on solid ground without assistance.
We sit him down on a beach chair,
and I’m trying to think, Where else
could we do this?—when thisBEFORE they went on their quest to meet
Chad Everett, Ronnie and the author
(right) made man-on-the-street videos.rd.com 91My Most Unforgettable Character