History Arrives One Name at a Time

Some weeks, history arrives one name at a time.

This week, it arrived as a chorus.

On August 25, Tim Curry died.

That same day, Dolly Parton died.

Eight days later, Gloria Steinem died.

Three enormous public lives. Three very different people.

Three names that sent the rest of the world back through movies, music, movements, and memories.

When we heard Tim Curry’s name, our home did not first think about his long career or the many characters he played.

We went straight back to Toledo.

We went back to the Westwood Theatre.

We went back to The Rocky Horror Picture Show—faithfully, Friday after Friday.

Before streaming, before movies followed us everywhere, and before every fan community had an online home, there was a theater, a particular night, and a group of people who knew they belonged there.

Harlan got to go before I did.

He was older. He had his own friends, his own group, and his own place inside that strange, joyful world.

I came in as the younger brother and an outsider among the groupies. They already knew one another. They knew the timing, the language, the rituals, and the rhythm of the room.

I had to learn.

But Harlan and his friends let me in.

That mattered.

You may notice that, as I write this, I keep using the word “we.”

That is intentional.

PJ, Harlan, and I all went to the same high school. It is a blessing that PJ was there then as a friend and is here now as my wife.

Our Rocky Horror memories include faces and laughter from that moment—long before any of us understood that we were creating memories we would still carry so many years later.

At the time, it was just Friday night.

It was the Westwood. It was Rocky Horror. It was Tim Curry becoming the unforgettable Dr. Frank-N-Furter.

It was a room full of people finding the freedom to be louder, stranger, funnier, and more completely themselves.

The movie taught us audience participation.

Harlan’s group taught me something larger: how to enter a world that was already underway.

Pay attention.

Learn the rhythm.

Respect the people who were there before you.

Do not demand the center of the room.

Become part of it.

That is what certain performers do. They do not simply entertain us. They become markers on our personal timelines.

The moment I heard that Dolly Parton had died, I could hear Harlan preparing his entrance.

I am certain he greeted her with a big, rousing:

“Well… Helllll-o, Dolllllly!”

Not merely spoken.

Performed.

If you knew Harlan, you can picture him in character. You can see the expression, the posture, and the dramatic pause. You can hear him stretching every syllable until the greeting became a full production.

And you can almost hear the laughter that would follow.

The joke would have been theatrical, but never unkind.

Harlan understood that humor could be a form of affection. Dolly understood something similar about performance: the sparkle, the hair, the clothes, and the perfectly timed one-liners were not barriers between her and other people.

They were part of the way she welcomed people in.

And then there is the photo PJ snapped at the Toledo Botanical Garden:

“Hello, Dahlia!”

Then, just days later, Toledo called again.

Gloria Steinem was born there.

The world knew her as a journalist, an organizer, and one of the most recognizable voices in the movement for women’s equality.

Harlan knew she was from Toledo.

Harlan could clutch his pearls with the best of them, but his support for women’s rights and equality was never an act. He understood that equality does not belong to one group.

It is either for everyone, or it is not equality at all.

Gloria left Toledo and carried her work across the country and around the world.

Harlan roamed east and south, building chapters of his own life far from where we began. But he was never shy about telling people that he was from Toledo.

Toledo remained part of his introduction.

It was his origin story.

Some people leave a place and spend their lives trying to erase it.

Harlan carried Toledo with him—the family, the food, the theaters, the humor, the friendships, and the particular way our hometown taught us to see the world.

That is why Gloria Steinem’s death did not feel like an unrelated third headline.

It felt like another thread leading home.

In different ways, Harlan responded to all three.

He loved theater and character.

He loved a perfectly delivered line.

He believed in equality.

And when I was the younger brother standing at the edge of his group, he let me in.

This week’s Torah portion, Nitzavim-Vayeilech, begins with Moses addressing the entire community—leaders, elders, children, and the stranger among them.

You are standing here today, all of you.

Not only the obvious people.

Not only the insiders.

Not only those who arrived first or already knew what to do.

All of you.

No one was meant to remain outside the circle.

Then Vayeilech—“and he went”—turns toward departure and transition. Moses knows that he will not make the next part of the journey with his people. The leader who went ahead can no longer continue beside them.

The people must carry forward what he taught them.

Harlan went ahead of me more than once.

He was older.

He reached the Westwood first.

He found the group first.

He learned the rituals first.

This week, I am remembering three people whose public lives stirred very private memories: a theater in Toledo, PJ and our mutual friends, a younger brother learning the rhythm, and Harlan already inside—showing me how it was done.

We can picture Tim Curry somewhere smiling at a perfectly timed entrance.

We can picture Dolly receiving Harlan’s grandest “Hello, Dolly!”

And we can picture Harlan proudly reminding Gloria Steinem, just in case she had forgotten:

“You know, we’re from Toledo.”

Three goodbyes.

One time warp home.

May the memories of Tim Curry, Dolly Parton, and Gloria Steinem be for a blessing.

Peace, Love and Equality for all.

Shabbat Shalom.