More Characters: Charlie the Tunafish

Charlie the Tunafish was a character who lived in the Goodale end of the dorm, but he could have been any of us. He could have been a good student, but he was a bit preoccupied with other pursuits.

Charlie was one of those undergrads who was always looking for love in all the wrong places. It was the disco era, so of course he had his platform shoes, snaggletooth necklace and a shirt that he always unbuttoned halfway down to his waist for the mixers. He was more a fan of Roxy Music than the Bee Gees, though, so he didn't entirely fit the scene.

But Charlie was always willing to broaden his horizons.

Charlie's bigger problem was that he was always flunking at least a couple of courses each semester. It wasn't that he wasn't MIT caliber; he just had too many other things on his mind.

Charlie once brought home a gorgeous young blonde from the Combat Zone - one who streaked Professor French's physics class one afternoon - but in true Charlie fashion, he happened to lose her to another of the dorm residents. She would become a den mother to us, she cooked a number of spaghetti suppers for the residents of the floor, and she also turned out to be a decent softball player, which was important because otherwise we wouldn't have won many games. She never became a Stickles character, though - probably because Doonesbury already had a character named Boopsie.