From the desk of ...
DEBBIE WACHTER MORRIS
Recent publicity surrounding a planned movie about the Green Man has spurred communications from people who had encountered him.
A response to a black-and-white picture in last week’s New Castle News deserves mention because a few local men in the photograph were improperly identified, and we now think we know who they really are.
The picture, of former East Side teens with Ray Robinson, drew a lot of attention and stirred memories for a 70-year-old Moon Township man, formerly of New Castle, who is in the snapshot.
Walter Bixler and his friends frequently would visit Robinson and they befriended him, which is how he came to be in the picture.
He became aware of it when he received an e-mail from Don Dover, a family member in Bradenton, Fla., who subscribes to the New Castle News. Dover wrote to tell Bixler he had seen his picture in the paper. Then Bixler heard from other family members, too.
When he saw the picture, he picked himself out and realized he had been misidentified, he said, as were a couple of the others.
The information with the photo also incorrectly noted only one of the men is still living, when actually, three are, he said. The other two — Robinson and Duane “Tubby” Conners — have died, Bixler added.
To set the record straight, Bixler identified the rest of the men pictured as Jimmy Perrotta of New Castle, himself, Robinson, Conners and Richard Mann, who lives in West Pittsburg.
“I was excited to see that picture in the New Castle News,” Bixler said. “That was nice.”
The picture had been provided by Perrotta’s nephew, Domenick Russo, who also had made the incorrect identifications. But when Russo submitted the photo, he said he did not know all the names.
To Bixler, the picture was a valuable find nevertheless.
It took him back to his teen days when the guys in the picture, who lived on Dushane Street, hung out together. He likened their friendship to the movie, “The Sandlot.”
“That was a beautiful time,” he said. “We all went to school together, and we all went to see Ray. All of us are still friends today.”
Bixler talked about his acquaintance with Robinson, giving details about how he and his friends would visit him every couple of months in the Koppel area where he walked.
“Everybody respected him. He was a nice person.”
He said Robinson would update them on how many miles he had on his tennis shoes.
Robinson also would tell them how he had been shocked by a high tension wire, he said, and that he had received doctor’s care. Robinson’s eyelids had been welded shut as a result of his injuries, and he could see light and dark, but little more, Bixler recalled.
How he could see his way to walk “is a good question,” Bixler said, guessing Robinson felt his way on the road and gravel from Route 18 toward New Galilee.
Asked why he didn’t have his face repaired, Robinson would say that God made him that way for a reason, and he didn’t want to change it, Bixler said.
Although he doesn’t recall how Robinson died, Bixler remembers the untimely death of Conners, who had been working for the Fisher Clothing Co.
He became a successful salesman and went to work in Cleveland, Bixler recalled of Conners, and one day en route home from work, he collapsed and died. He was 26 years old.
Bixler said he was glad to learn about the Green Man publicity because “those were memories that were long gone. I’d forgotten all about them.”
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‘Green Man’ publicity spurs memories for former East Side man
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