" Emo "- Patinkin column ( June 23, 1998 )

I have known the subject of Mark Patinkin's excellent column

    today (  "  Mo  quotes Robert Frost and rescues cats " -June 23 )

    - " Emo " Hovannesian - neighborhood philosopher, rescuer of stray

    cats, down and out lost soul eccentric, heir to an imagined Czarist

    Russia oil fortune, now pathetic victim of  Mayor Cianci's " neighborhood

    improvement " --since 1970. He is a chartered member of Our Gang.

       I can assure Providence Journal readers that he is no " fabrication ".

    He is our answer to New York's Ratso Rizzo of " Midnight Cowboy "

    fame. In fact playing " Emo " would be a perfect role for brilliant

    actor Dustin Hoffman, a sure Academy Award Winner !

        When THEY are demolishing his humble house at 327 Dexter St., I

    want all Rhode Island to hear his plaintive cry : " I'm here! I'm here ! "

       I first met Emo at the former " wild-hippie " Armando's Bar in

    downtown Providence.He was the friend of another " our gang " friend-

    now a math teacher at URI - who now and then -too drunken to go home-

    crashed in my bathtub in a squalid rooming house on North Main Street.

    Those " welfare blues days " !

       " Emo" was the gang's technical advisor on race track gambling. Once

    I made a " grandma bet " and won enough money to treat myself to an ice

    cream sunday at Lincoln Downs.

        He is still one of the few people in Providence with whom I can

    discuss IDEAS- and the OLD DAYS.

       I hope Mark Patinkin's column will help people to see him as I've

    always seen him - a saint without God.

         I thank  Mark again for finding a great - if rather pathetic story.