What an idea. But I was just there and logged in. Wikipedia informed me that there was no page for User:Sraines902 and that such a page, were it to be written, ought to be written by UserSraines902 his/her/itself. So I clicked the edit button –I’m a real sucker for those, lately–and wrote. Here’s what I wrote.

User Sraines902 is Stan Raines. He comes from Brownsville, Texas. A retired teacher, he currently is playing guitar with Andrew Sanders, Tom Raines, and Ted Lucio under the name Andrew and Friends. They were engaged in a project to help revive the Yacht Club in Port Isabel, Texas, but have withdrawn from public performance for a period of rehearsal and recording. Andrew Sanders plays piano and sings. Tom is the drummer and Ted is the bassist for the group. Styles include reggae, Afro-Latin, and occasional blues and rock motifs.

Sraines902 taught with the Brownsville Independent School District in Brownsville,Texas, from 1981 to 2006, first at Falk Intermediate School (now a middle school); then at Porter High School; Hanna High School; Central Intermediate, then Middle, School; ending his career at Yturria Middle School. In the school year 1985-86, Sraines902 worked as a Software Secialist at the Pan American University at Brownsville, a satellite institution of Pan American University in Edinburg, Texas.

He pursued a career in amateur theater, principally at the Camille Lightner Playhouse in Dean Porter Park in Brownsville. He appeared in more than thirty shows under the direction of Larry Steigel and Joel Humphries including, most recently, playing Big Daddy Pollitt in a Humphries rendition of Tennessee William’s Cat on A Hot Tin Roof.

Sraines902 and Humphries are currently developing a course in improvisational acting.

It was a very peculiar activity, difficult to avoid the past tense, and, thus, the impression that I was writing my own obituary. Well, it’s certainly a cleaned up version and seems to have left out quite a bit of the early stuff and the madnesses and excesses–all of them in fact–but works for me if no one else should bother when I actually take that last dive. Maybe I should write my last will and testament here, too. It’s a public record.

Then I did a search for some of the old crowd, Thomas Thornburg, Mary Katherine Trenfield-Raines, Mary Katherine Raines, Susan Burke, Susan Trenfield, William Douglas Trenfield, John Anthony Goggin. No Wikipedia entries for them. Oh. None for me, either.

So I consider the project. Should I write what I know? Then add what I find out? you could build articles over a period of time. And since these would be low-search terms, or at least, I assume they would be. Who’s going to be searching for Herbert Kenneth Walker III in the near future? Maybe Herbert Kenneth Walker IV. Or his spouse. Or child. But what of it, as long as one is telling publicly known stories. It’d be a step towards building an actual narrative of a very intensely busy time.

A worthy project, perhaps. Maybe I should just write the Muncie story here as a serial. Of course, it would be backwards in its final form. But isn’t that the way the past appears anyway? It’s last part most visible, it’s beginning obscure?
If not, explain it to me.