Rick and Franz

Rick Victor still owns the house where he grew up outside of Scranton. The floor is dirt and you see bits of the sky as you look through the roof and the walls are as thin and brittle as graham crackers. But it still stands and Rick Victor comes by every so often to see it and to remember. His life is a miracle. That’s the thing he wants to remember. There was so little hope in that poor little suburb. Life inescapably led to the coal mines. Only his life did not…because of music.

The day he showed us the house there was a woman living there, and she is still there … she is a family friend and lives there for free. There is only one thing Rick Victor asks. She must not change things. This house must remain as it was because this house is what connects Rick Victor to a past he must remember. He was a chart-topping musician. He was a groundbreaking artist. He fathered 17 children (at last count). He is a hero to his people. He cannot accomplish all that he must do if he does not remember his past.

But even in this, the woman does not have to keep everything exactly the same. It is her home now.

“Right there,” Victor said as he pointed at a photo on the wall, “there used to be a picture of Jesus.”

The picture is now of Franz Klingermann.