WHATEVER HAPPENED TO?

Back in the days before journalism went out of style, I occasionally assigned a writer to do a feature we called “Whatever Happened To.” One day the assignment was to find Johnny Paycheck, the country singer who had a big hit with “Take This Job and Shove It.”

Whatever happened to Johnny Paycheck was he was in jail when we tracked him down. He was put there after shooting a guy. When he spoke to us from his temporary residence, he was pleasant and upbeat about continuing his career someday.

I frequently wonder whatever happened to a young girl named Georgia. I met Georgia only one time. That was thirty-seven years ago on a September day, the day our daughter Julie McCoy married Lynn Parish at the chapel at Syracuse University.

It was a small ceremony — and, as father of the bride, I was really proud of my daughter for keeping the expenses down. After the ceremony, we all gathered outside the chapel for some picture-taking. I noticed a young girl — somewhere between eight and ten years old — standing on the sidewalk, looking up at all those adults at the top of the steps.

Never knowing how to behave, I motioned for the girl to come up and join us. She did. At least one, if not more of the groom’s sisters, was not thrilled by this, but there Georgia is in group wedding pictures, surrounded by strangers.

Whatever happened to Georgia? She would be in her mid-40s now. Is she married? If so, when wedding pictures were taken did she think for a second about that day back in Syracuse? Has she had a career doing something she loved? I sure hope she did, rather than ending up working some place where every damn day she wanted to shout “Take This Job and Shove it.”

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Addendum: the writer in me wants to credit the writer of that song — David Allan Coe.