When we moved back to Columbus in 1965, the first person my age I met was Doug George. He and I shared an aunt, Olean Salley who was married to my uncle James Salley.

The second new friend I met through him was a young Stevie O’Callaghan, who at 15 was already an accomplished guitar player who played in a local band out of S.D. Lee called the Castaways. He lived right around the corner from my aunt and uncle.

Stevie and I became tight friends, and I would often spend the weekend hanging out at his folk’s house. I desperately wanted to learn to play, and he would sit with me and finger by finger he would teach me to play real songs, not silly stuff from the pitiful music books of the time.

The first song I learned on his Gibson Melody Maker was “Day Tripper” by the Beatles. I was thrilled. (I can still play that tune just reaching back to my memory after all this time.)

As I melded into the social order at Lee High, he was part of our motley gang of musicians and our girlfriends, trouble makers all. Beer drinkers and Hell raisers. Underage bar players.

A short little firecracker and wiseass, you could never be bored with Stevie in the mix.

I had a spiral composition book which served as our newspaper, comic book and sort of our version of the internet. I would draw sometimes lewd cartoons and poems that would be passed around from friend to friend and then back to me. Mahlon Vickery (a much better artist) would occasionally contribute. It was called “the Book of Mollymuck,” my writing alias.

During one particularly drunken night at one of our gravel pit parties, Stevie went for a beer run in his mother’s car along with my future girlfriend/wife Denise and a couple of other delinquents.

Speeding down a dark gravel road, he totally flipped his mom’s car over a fence and landed upside down in a cow pasture. Luckily, everyone escaped injury somehow. And no seatbelts!

The next addition to “the Book” Monday morning was a poem lauding the event (with cartoon by Mahlon) that established his new nickname “Crash O’Callaghan.”

One of my first Dispatch articles (you can find in the online archives) was about how Stevie made the mistake of challenging Rick Derringer and the McCoys to a battle of the bands. (Called of course “Stevie O. and the Battle of the Bands.”) He had no clue as to who Derringer was and who he was about to be: the most famous guitar player of the 70’s and beyond.

They had come to play an S.D. Lee school dance and Stevie grossly underestimated Derringer’s guitar skills. One of the most embarrassing experiences he ever had. And it was hard to embarrass him. He was a wild character.

Stevie was a prankster, and sometimes would put himself in harm’s way when he was trying to get a laugh.

At another dance, he zeroed in on a girl who was known for her stuck up attitude, but was hardly a raving beauty. In fact, she was kinda homely. We’ll call her Suzie. Stevie approached his victim.

Stevie: “Hey Suzie! You doin’ anything next Friday night?”

Suzie: “Well…I don’t think so.” (Flipping her hair with her hand)

Stevie: “How bout stayin’ at home and taking a bath?”

A round of roaring laughter from the nearby crowd.

However, he didn’t know that she had a boyfriend (we’ll call Brutus) who was a bench warming B team football player. Not much skill, but he was 6’3”, 275 pounds. Not much of a sense of humor either.

O’Callaghan was ducking and dodging all around town for a couple of weeks until the heat died down.

Over the years, Stevie played in many bands around Columbus. He was happiest with a guitar slung over his shoulder.

He passed away several years back.

R.I.P. you crazy *#@%.

Thom Caraccio ([email protected]) is a retired musician and retired motion picture scenic artist living in West Palm Beach, Florida who hails from Columbus. He graduated from S.D. Lee High in 1968 and still considers Columbus his real hometown.