It seems like most everyone in Abilene knows who Terry Berry was, whether they knew his name or not. He's that guy - you now, the guy who walked around in short shorts, tube socks and a hat. Students called him a male prostitute. Others just thought he was strange. But everyone hasn't been able to stop talking about Terry since Thursday, when he was killed by a train.

Drivers and the train's conductor said he was running down the tracks, in front of the train. The conductor blew the train's whistle to warn Berry, but he never looked back.

We didn't know it was him at first, but by Friday morning it had been confirmed, and hundreds of people called the paper to tell us. No one could believe it. Terry was an Abilene staple; a local icon who, unfortunately, ended up as the butt of many jokes.

The paper ran a photo column on him about a year ago, and Terry's brother wrote the photographer to thank him and provide a little insight. Apparently, something happened to Terry when he was young, and he's never been the same. Not sure if 'not quite right in the head' is PC, but it sums it up.

I saw him a few months ago on the north side, near a Walgreens. I always wanted to talk to him.


Here's a story we ran about him:

Deceased: Walking man misperceived, misjudged, missed
September 23, 2006

Nearly everyone in Abilene knew Terry Berry, if not his name, at least the sight of him - he was the man who wore short shorts and knee-high white socks and strode with purpose over miles of Abilene daily for years - but they may not have known the man inside the shorts.

Berry was killed by a train Thursday while apparently jogging on the tracks. He didn't own a car.

People honked their horns at him and jeered as he paraded in his odd outfit. Girls in cars rolled down their windows and whistled. Berry, 48, seemed to enjoy the attention and took pride in his good looks, especially his shapely legs.

His neighbors, his landlord, his church family and the proprietors of at least one restaurant where he enjoyed eating, speak highly of Berry and are saddened by his loss. Tears are flowing for the man who seemed so odd.

Berry's neighbor in a northwest Abilene apartment complex hung a small wreath on Berry's doorknob on Friday.

''He was my friend,'' said Robbin Brooks, who, with her husband, moved next door to Berry's second-floor apartment about three years ago. ''Oh, yes. We talked quite frequently. He never bothered anybody. He was a good neighbor. He liked to show me his drawings. I never went in his apartment, but stood at the door. When my husband and I heard about the train accident and Terry didn't come home that night, we just prayed to God that it wasn't Terry.''

Brooks said she thought that maybe something was not ''quite right'' about Berry.

''Sometimes I would look down in the apartment courtyard. He would be talking to himself,'' Brooks said. ''He loved to talk to everybody, too. He could talk and talk and talk.''

Over the years stories and rumors have circulated about Berry but Abilene Police Department records do not validate them.

His friends insist he was a ''good guy'' and not at all what many perceived of him. He lived on a small disability payment.

Possibly, Berry's closest friend was Renee Burk, a member of the Fountain Gate Fellowship. She said she became fascinated by Berry.

''What's up with him?'' she wondered. ''I was probably thinking like everyone else about him.''

Then she reminded herself that she was a Christian and should not prejudge people. When Burk ran into Berry at a convenience store, she stopped him, asked him if he was a Christian and invited him to her church. He admitted, Burk said, he thought he was probably headed to hell.

''I probably haven't led a very good life,'' Berry told her.

After weeks, Burk ran into Berry again. He said he had nothing to wear to church but his shorts. Burke said she assured him he could wear his shorts to church.

Berry finally showed up. He was converted and baptized in April and was regular in attendance, always wearing his shorts.

''He came to our meeting just last Wednesday night,'' Burk said. ''He seemed very happy. He had hope for the future. His heart was good. He didn't drink, do drugs or smoke. But I do think he had a poor self image. But he was polite, respectful and happy. He was fun to be around. He was almost like a childlike person.''

Burk said she often took Berry to the grocery stores and walked through the aisles with him.

''People stared, but I didn't care what they thought,'' she said. ''In the end I know I helped him, but he helped me, too. He taught me not to be so judgmental and critical.''

Berry's mother died a year or so ago. His friends said that depressed him. He had been seen walking with a man who was in his 90s until a few months ago. When the man, Billy, who had become a great friend of Berry's died of cancer, Berry's friends said Berry took it hard.

Abilenian Lance Voorhees, a frequent walker, met Berry on a walk and they sometimes walked a few blocks together.

Terry had ''innocent delusions of grandeur,'' Voorhees said. ''He loved the attention. He loved it when the girls whistled and screamed from their car windows. He had a different view of the world. And everybody knew him. Some people even dressed like him for Halloween.''

On the other hand, Voorhees said Berry could talk ''lucidly'' about politics and spiritual things.

Local sports fans dressed like Berry on several occasions at local games.

Ecko's Restaurant on South First Street was one of Berry's favorite places to eat. It is owned by Ecko Barbian, who is helped by her husband Gary Barbian.

They were shocked to learn of Berry's death.

''He'd come in and he didn't bother anybody,'' Ecko Barbian said.

He usually came with his old friend Billy, whose last name was not known.

''When Billy died, I think Terry was pretty much lost,'' Gary Barbian said.

Ecko said Berry always waved at her when he walked by if he didn't come in.

''He told me that one day he would drive up in a limousine and take me shopping,'' Ecko Barbian said.

How are you going to afford that, she asked him.

''Oh, I'll do that when I win the lottery,'' Berry joked.

Gary Barbian's eyes welled in tears at the memory.

Memorial services are pending.

Is nothing sacred?

A former fellow Optimist staffer wrote his own 'Freshman' column. I actually tried to help out, editing it and highlighting areas where the piece could have been stronger. He really didn't take my advice. Kids.

Of course, I was reminded of my own 'Freshman' column, which isn't good -- just infamous. (You'll notice the similarities in our columns.) The aforementioned staffer told me yesterday he heard someone talk about it in conjunction with his. Sigh. But at least that reminds me that for two years, I had an amazing opportunity to share my opinions, not having ever earned a right to, to the student body and university community -- an opportunity I'd give anything to have again, though now with a different audience.

The best hate e-mail I received was from a girl who told me that I, along with her R.A., had ruined her first two weeks of college. Awesome. What cut me to the core was people's confusion on the *note at the bottom, where I was explaining where "I Am the Enemy" came from -- my favorite movie, Almost Famous. For each letter I received from an 18-year-old calling me cynical and signing their anonymous rant "The Already Famous Freshman," "The Nearly Famous Freshman," "The Will Never Be Famous Freshman," etc, a piece of my heart broke. Kids.

My "Best Columnist" plaque I received at the end of the year, which actually said "Best Columnists," still hasn't been corrected. Who knows if I'll get it back. That time is over, and it's time to move on, but I guess it's just not that easy.

I don't want to stop being a kid.

I get to be in charge of my own entertainment page beginning Thursday, mug shot, bylines and all. We'll see how it goes, and I can't express how excited I am. It's time for a change of scene.

P.S. I think this cartoon is funny, especially knowing the cartoonist. Don't think I can't see Godzilla in the background and what appears to be the word "Simpsons," Cole. Glad to know you haven't changed.

Headlines don't sell papes.

While talking online with my brother at work, I informed him that I was busy writing headlines for the paper's local sections and front page. He then decided, being so clever, to suggest a few headlines of his own that would surely be appropriate for any kind of news happening in Abilene.

Now, I'll share them with you:

"Jew spotted, immediately deported"
"Tomatoes are still yummy, say farmers"
"Kitten climbs tree, everybody panics"
"Gas prices rise; elderly call for cars run on blood of immigrants"
"Local preacher thinks teen girls are 'whory'"
"Frontier, Texas! closes; town remains unmoved"
"Chicken Express linked to meteoric rise in local cholesterol levels; no one cares"
"Anson lights just cars, you idiot"
"HSU freshmen sacrifice goat; 'We always knew this place was weird,' admins say"
"House of Yahweh traps and kills drifters; local officials 'scared s***less', do nothing"
"Computers linked to teen pregnancy (why not?)"
"Kenny Rogers cancels concert; hundreds riot"
"IHOP doubles as brothel; flapjack special 'coolest thing ever', customers say"
"Books feared for their knowledge; punks torch library in revolt"

I don't care if it's the same -- It's still creepy.

Seeing the reaction to Facebook's facelift is entertaining at the least. While many, including my brother and Mark Zuckerberg himself, contend that nothing essentially changed on the site -- that it's merely only making what you could already find easier to find -- I still say it ups the stalking capabilities several unwelcome notches. What's great is seeing media coverage: Time, The Wall Street Journal and Forbes, to name a few. Now old people are wondering what the crap Facebook is while undergrads and people who spend too much time on the site are up in arms that their beloved addiction is changing.

What makes the mini-feed somewhat invasive:
1. Technically, you could have seen whose wall I was posting on, if you checked every one of my friend's walls, or if we had a wall-to-wall conversation. Maybe it's just me, but I never scanned people's walls, trying to piece together conversations.
2. Before, you couldn't see what invitation I'd just turned down, or what group I just left.
3. Yes, Mark, it is just putting the information people used to go digging for out in the open, but the people who would go digging for that information probably border on stalkers.
4. Saying that someone updated new photos or changed their profile is interesting, but we don't need to know that I wrote on Justin's wall at 2:53 p.m. Wednesday.

By having a Facebook profile, we're already putting ourselves out onto the Web. So, we can't really complain. But we're still going to. We'd convinced ourselves that somehow, we still have privacy online. This is just reiterating to us that we don't. And that's just creepy.

"You fail to recognize that it matters not what someone is born, but what they grow to be."

According to Father Gabriele Amorth, Pope Benedict XVI's senior exorcist (didn't know you could do that for a living), the Harry Potter books are downright evil, hiding "the signature of the king of darkness, the devil."

What's more interesting:

Amorth, who is president of the International Association of Exorcists, also said Adolf Hitler and Russian leader Joseph Stalin were possessed by the devil, and that Pope Pius XII once tried to perform a long-distance exorcism on Hitler.

"I am convinced that the Nazis were all possessed. All you have to do is think about what Hitler - and Stalin did. Almost certainly they were possessed by the devil.

"You can tell by their behavior and their actions, from the horrors they committed and the atrocities that were committed on their orders. That's why we need to defend society from demons."

Does it make him feel better to say that Hitler and Stalin must have been possessed, not wanting to consider how a human being could carry out such horrific acts? Do we have to explain evil away as some type of demon-possessing trance because it's too unsettling to realize that everyone is capable of evil? What makes the Holocaust terrifying is the fact that it was carried out by you and me, not by a robot or monster we'd rather have as a villain -- something not human.

Young U.K. readers just voted Lord Voldemort the No. 1 literary villain in a Bloomsbury poll. Here's part of what J.K. Rowling had to say when thanking readers:

I have always felt that cardboard baddies make weak heroes and that Harry deserved a really deluxe model, so I have done my best to make Lord Voldemort a real person, red eyed and snakelike though he might be. He, of course, is one of the reasons the Harry Potter books are often banned, but I remain of the firm belief that we need our imaginary villains, the better to brace ourselves for the ones we need to fight in reality.

The difference between good and evil is fairly thin and centers on power, coming down to how far one is willing to go to obtain it. As Harry learns repeatedly, it's the choices you make that define you. "It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities."

Amorth is taking choice out of the equation, which is a disservice to everyone he's supposed to be shepherding and, essentially, is a bad choice.

Ahhh, look at all the lonely people

Why is this so interesting? A coworker pointed out this random Web site where you can view pictures of people's graves. You can also leave eulogies for the dearly departed. I actually learned this in a book, but F. Scott Fitzgerald's grave is engraved with the last lines from "The Great Gatsby," which are under my blog's title on the right side of this page. Interesting. Enjoy this morbid time-waster.