Kim Peek Recollected
Early this morning, I have baby Ollie at the kitchen table and Grandpa joins us for his last ever Monday with the Salt Lake District Attorney’s office. He spreads open The Salt Lake Tribune, and we chat at the bubbly baby. Grandpa comments that the four pages of foreclosure notices are a pretty good economic indicator.
A section later, we’re at the obituaries. A particular one surfaces at the top center: Laurence Kim Peek. “Ah!” says Grandpa tapping the write-up. “That’s Rainman. Kim Peek. He was the real Rainman; the one that Dustin Hoffman played? That was him.” I think, “Wow? He was still around?” I have the same sense of shock when I heard Oliver Saks alive and well on the NYC Radiolab podcast a few months ago.
Grandpa continues, “I met him down at the library about 20 years ago.
“He just walks up to me, and says ‘Hi, I’m Kim.’
I’m like, ‘Oh? Hello. I’m Howie.’
‘Howie what?’, Kim replies.
‘Howard Lemcke.’
‘How come you say you’re Howie if you’re Howard Lemcke?’
‘Well, it’s a nickname.’
‘Oh.’ And there’s not so much as a pause when he comes back with, ‘You’re not in the phone book.’
‘Well, you’re right! I’m not.’ And we continue with that whole bit about protecting the privacy of public officials. I tell him the alias.
‘Mmmm… Eighteen-oh-three wasatch boulevard. Eight-three-one-two-three. Eight-oh-one four-two-two thirteen-sixteen.’ And he just rattles it off.
I said, ‘That’s right again!’ And he smiled and left to introduce himself to someone else. One of the oddest interactions I had a the time.”