Random Thoughts on Friday: Remembering Lexington's Jim Varney

I wanted to just take a second to babble on about Jim Varney.  My path never crossed with his, though he rests eternally a very short distance from where I live now.  I am so proud of how far that Kentuckian went.

I remember him from his movies and commercials as a kid.  He was just a funny character.

My friend Heather lived near him back in the day.  She never met him, but loved his movies.  As a kid, she always hoped that she would bump in to him sometime.  Well, of course the one evening that she did not go to the grocery with her mom was the one night that her mom met him.  Heather's mom reported that he was a very nice man.

Everyone knows that he spent some time doing theater at the always entertaining Pioneer Playhouse in Danville (a young John Travolta and Lee Majors would also spend some time there).  I have read in a couple of sources that Jim Varney was a brilliant actor who could do Shakespeare.  

That is impressive, but I can't name a single brilliant Shakespearian actor...  I know Jim Varney though.

I was watching a season 3 episode of Alice the other day....  a show I am going back and watching right now....  and there he was.  Jim Varney.  It was like bumping in to an old friend.