Occasionally someone will ask me where I come up with names for the characters in my books. It's a fun question,
because I do have some unusual sources for great character names. Some of the best ones I've used came from cemetery
gravestones. That's where I found Effie Maude, the name of Mrs. Penfield's housekeeper in the HANDYMAN books.
For those who have read the books, they know that there is a small country cemetery where Ed and Rick occasionally go to think
and have heavy conversations. That fictional cemetery is based on a real one, and it was there that I found the name
"Croasdale." I decided to pay respects to that cemetery in general by using that last name for Ed's older woodworking
friend Clyde.
Some of the names in the HANDYMAN books are my own private jokes. When I needed a name for Ed's high school
girlfriend I thought of a 1960 Anne Emery teen romance, The Popular Crowd, I had loved as a kid. I came
up with "Cathy Carroll" by combining the first name of one of the bitchier girls in the story with the last name of the
heroine's sex-hungry, nasty boyfriend. (I later used his first name and her last name -- Pete Carmichael -- to
come up with the name of a character at the end of The Handyman's Promise.) So imagine my surprise
last Sunday when I was at a record show and came across "Cathy Carroll" on an early sixties 45.
As I mentioned in a blog earlier this fall I've been working on my collection of vintage 45's of late. When I intercepted
a postcard at the radio stations announcing a record collectors' show at a local motel, I was determined to
go. So I braved a sudden intense snowfall and drove across town to check it out. I even won a door
prize, which shocked me shitless. I never win drawings like that, so I was quite pleased. Anyway, when I
was going through the 45 selections of one particular dealer I flipped over a record by Cathy Carroll singing the theme
from a movie called The Young Ones. At that point my middle-aged brain farted, and I got the title
mixed up with The Cool Ones, a wonderfully bad period-piece movie of the mid-sixties I was telling friends about
last summer. "Well," I said to myself, "I gotta buy this one and take it home and listen to it."
I played the record at home, and it finally hit me that I had the movies mixed-up. Still, it wasn't a bad little
tune. I was confused, though. How come I had never heard of an early sixties vocalist named Cathy Carroll?
If I had, I would have never used her name in my books. So I did a little internet digging and found out that although
Miss Carroll had a bright, engaging vocal quality (the record I was listening to bore this out), she had never manged to score
anything more than a few weak regional hits. Oh, one of her Warner Brothers released crept on to the Hot 100, but dropped
off after peaking at #91. This just confirms what I've been saying for years -- that a lot of potentially huge stars
and songs never make it simply because of luck and timing.
By the way, "The Young Ones" Cathy was singing about turned out to be the title song of a movie that was made in the
UK starring Cliff Richard in 1962. Many folks in the US don't realize it, but Cliff Richard was a huge recording
star in the UK long before he really cracked the charts here with "Devil Woman" in 1976. (He was so big that he was
doing the Elvis thing in the early sixties by making movies.) The song was recorded by Mr. Richard in the UK and
was a monster hit. The US recording by Cathy Carroll died a quick death. Too bad. As I said, it's an
enjoyable recording, and certainly a nice slice of early sixties pop music.
If nothing else this proves I'm far from being the last word on early sixties girl singers and girl groups. (I
give that distinction to Chad Sosna, author of Doo-Lang Love.) However I couldn't have been more surprised
if I had come across a 45 with the artist name of "Ed Stephens" on it. I try to avoid using character names of anyone
I know --unless I'm somehow paying tribute to them - and the names of the famous. You could argue that Cathy
Carroll is far from famous, but she achieved one of my youthful dreams: She has her name on records that are still floating
around 46 years later. Since I can't carry a tune I had to write books to get my name out there.
So Cathy Carroll -- wherever you are -- thanks for giving me a fun WOW moment, and reminding me that silly insignificant
things like this make life ever so much more interesting.
