Seeking the Gravesite of Stanley Fafara

 On June 27th, 2020, I set out to locate the grave of former child actor Stanley Fafara (1949-2003). It marked the first time I had trod the grasses and lanes of Redland Pioneer Cemetery, in a rustic area of Oregon City, Oregon. Driving on rural roads, I stopped, at first believing the gate was locked. I entered the grounds, and quickly homed in on Stanley Fafara's grave marker; only placed in 2016. This was a grave that was easy to sight; unlike, say, the false starts, the disorientation, that might occur, looking for the dead in a large place like Pere Lachaise.  A fence, hedges, and a nursery, with the softened outlines of hills about, border Stanley Fafara's plot; the marker included his birth and death dates (which differ from the dates given in online sources), a cross (a Benedictine cross, according to the "2016" link), and the poignant nickname "Whitey." A mixture of overcast, wind, and occasional bursts of sunlight, defined the day.  

I never viewed Leave it to Beaver, in which Stanley Fafara -- playing the role of Hubert "Whitey" Whitney (a cheerful character, slightly less mischievous than some of The Beaver's other friends); in the seminal mid-century modern, nuclear family show, until a few years back. (The series had some intriguing undercurrents; such as when Ward Cleaver, played by Hugh Beaumont, mentioned that he subscribed to Weird Tales in youth.) Local TV did not broadcast the reruns, during my own youth. Popular TV culture was part of the gestalt in those years; whether absorbing the jarring images, in Green Acres of the ascent to make phone calls on a telephone pole; or seeing the Gomer Pyle show, followed by the unexpected death of Frank Sutton, who portrayed Sergeant Vince Carter. Family lore had it that he "gave himself a heart attack with his crazy screaming." The sergeant himself stated, with eerie premonition, in one episode, we've all gotta go sometime. The Vietnam War, at its height during the show's run, was absent (other than maybe by one or two remote allusions, to jungle warfare and the like), from a program which, paradoxically, revolved around the U.S. Marine Corps.  Frank Sutton's sudden passage was one of the ways in which I learned of the omnipresent essence of death.
Character actor Richard Deacon will forever signal the end of Green Acres, in an inchoate attempt to propel the show in a different direction. Leave it to Beaver will always capture some aspects of a time, from the late 50s to the period right before the assassination of John F. Kennedy; the scrapbook locked in amber. And the revelation of Stanley Fafara's grave, brought to awareness unrealized potentia, redemption, in this rural setting; nestled in leagues of farm and forest.

Paging Karl Edward Wagner....

Paging Karl Edward Wagner...