The Crack of Dawn #593

Volume #593

5/1/24

Newsletter #593

The Crack of Dawn

I met Goody at Camp Tamakwa in the summer of 1968 when I was ten years old, and he was twelve.  Goody was a big kid and he loomed over me.  He was also kind of halfhearted bully and I recall him pushing me down for the fun of it.  Goody and I got to know each other a bit in following several summers at camp, though we weren’t friend, but entirely because he was friends with friends of mine, specifically Ivan and Sam Raimi.  They liked him so he must be okay, but I still considered him a big pushy guy.

Why certain memories stand out so clearly, I cannot say.  This would have been the summer of 1971, and I was thirteen, so Goody was fifteen.  I was in the Voyager III cabin and Goody was a Senior Boy.  Everyone was off at various activities and I had dawdled, so everyone had left, and I was alone, which is odd.  I had probably forgotten my cigarettes and went back for them.  As I stepped out of the cabin into a bright, sunny, gorgeous day, I was alone among the three visible Voyager cabins, and I lit a cigarette.  I honestly recall thinking, “What a nice day.  Gosh, this is a good cigarette.”

The authoritative voice of the camp director, Marilyn, in the office came over the PA speakers so the whole camp could hear it, “David G., please report to the office.”

At that exact moment who should appear from the Senior Boy cabin right in front of me but Goody himself.  I said, “Hey, Goody, they just called you on the PA.”  Goody said, “Yeah, I heard” and walked past me heading down the hill. It wouldn’t be surprising if he flicked me in the nose or pushed me, but in a friendly way.

Apparently, and I could have this backward, Goody’s mother died a few weeks earlier and the family had decided to not tell Goody, but to let him enjoy the remainder of his summer at camp.  Unfortunately, two weeks later his father died, too.  After passing me outside the Voyager III cabin, he went to the office and was informed of the passing of both of his parents.  He disappeared. I heard that he left camp we didn’t see him for the rest of the summer.  In fact, unless I possibly happened to run into him at the Raimi’s house, where he occasionally visited, I don’t think I saw Goody again for eight years.

In the late fall of 1979 eighteen of us Michiganders loaded up about eight cars and a Ryder truck, heading south to Tennessee to make Evil Dead.  I don’t recall if I even owned a car at that time.  I was told to ride with Goody in his little white Nissan pickup truck.  I had no idea Goody was on the film crew.  I asked him what position he was filling, and he said, “Cook and PA.”  He then went on to explain that he now lived in New York City and had been working as a PA on real film shoots there.  He had just worked on Larry Cohen’s Q (1982) with Michael Moriarity and David Carradine, which I thought was pretty cool.

Anyway, we drove along in the caravan of cars for hours.  It was about 500 to our location in Morristown, Tennessee, which is an hour outside Knoxville, and it took about ten hours for all of us to drive it.  Somewhere along the way, as Goody and I just sat there riding along, not really saying anything, just listening to music, he said, “You were the last person I saw before learning that both my mother and father were dead.  They announced my name on the PA, I came out of the Senior Boys cabin, and you were just coming out of Voyager III.  Do you remember?”  I said, “Yes, I do remember.  I remember it exactly.”  Goody, who was known for his grumpy, grunting responses, said, “Eh. I remember it, too.”

And so, we went and made Evil Dead.