This Is a Treat Williams Appreciation Post(humous)

Once upon a time, before times turned unprecedented and a million+ of our elders, heroes and peers died alone and gasping for air and at a pace too rapid for me to form coherent sentences, I often used this blog as a place to mark the passing of folks in the culture who were important to me. A lot of my obit subjects were unsung or niche, and some even held beliefs diametrically opposed to mine. Many of them, I met. Some, I never did.

Once upon a time, before that time, I was a dorky suburban adolescent who liked to play (paddle) tennis and write but didn’t really fit in. Preppy culture was everywhere, but it didn’t jibe with my wallet or my preternaturally pear-shaped bod. Punk rock fit my sensibilities better, but not so much the fashions. As I felt the culture of conformity conspiring against me, I received the best gift.

Milos Forman made a movie of the hippie love-rock musical “Hair,” and Treat Williams was its star.

Maybe he wasn’t the actual star. But he was the hero, imho. His Berger drove the action, danced on the rich people’s table (alone and with Mrs. Garrett/Charlotte Rae!), led the tribe in groovy Twyla Tharp moves in Central Park, stopped in to see his Mom and (40-plus-year-old-spoiler alert!) died in Vietnam in Claude Hooper Bukowski’s place, a twist on the ending of the play that had debuted on Broadway only 11 years earlier(!). Berger’s death signaled the end of the ’60s idealism and progressivism that would fully hit a year later with the rise of Ronald Reagan.

That Forman killed off his film’s lusty, sweetly exuberant, and let’s face it foxy star hit me hard. That I saw it on a double-bill with “The Buddy Holly Story,” in which EVERYONE dies, and a mere 4 years out from a traumatic loss sent me into a teary emotional spiral that actually worried my harried-to-the-point-of-neglectful single Mom.

A few days later, I emerged from that cathartic, Mom-scaring crying jag with a newfound determination to be more like Berger, to lean into the ’60s and, as much as I could, to liberate my inner free spirit from my outer awkwardness.

No, I didn’t start wearing micro minis and macramé. But I did my best to care less about what the establishment — which I defined as anyone in charge of anything, or judgy people I didn’t know, really — thought about me. I resolved to find my tribe (which I did, many time!), and together we made our way through the right-wing backlash and into the bright futures we’re still enjoying as of this typing. A girl could do a lot worse than pursue hippie-inspired intellectual inquiry and societal boundary pushing through and after the dark days of the Reagan era.

As for Treat Williams, he went on to enjoy a long career and fulfilling life. How do I know this? His IMDB page shows roles and range with an enviable lack of gaps. And thanks to the equalizing intimacy of social media, lots of us got to Treat-ed to his grateful, quotidian existence. In tweets and posts, he shared serene snowy scenes, simple pleasures, kind thoughts and loving words for family and friends. Online, he was more than a man. He was a mensch.

Which made it all the more surreal when news of his death crossed the night of June 12. How could he be dead when he’d just posted this glorious meadow pic?

His last eerily cemetery-like tweet, in which he mused about wanting to “bottle this smell.”

Treat Williams died after being thrown from his motorcycle when an SUV turned into his path. He was wearing a helmet, but revival efforts did not succeed. I can only hope that in the twilight between here and the hereafter, the joy he gave to strangers, along with the love of his family, gave him some comfort.