It’s time to check in on some of our favorite people from this area.

    Where’s Charley? That was the title of a 1948 musical in which Ray Bolger plays an Oxford student who dresses as a woman to pass as a chaperone. Here in the Twin Cities most of us know darn well where our Charlie is. Charlie Albright is home for the summer. Well, sort of. He’ll also be in Boston; Tromso, Norway; and Lisbon, Portugal, with lots of time on airplanes, crossing the United States and the Atlantic Ocean several times.

    In mid-June, he’ll be competing in the Top of the World International Piano Competition in Norway. In mid-July it will be Vendome Prize International Competition in Portugal. In both cases he’ll fly to Boston a week previous to prepare for competition under the guidance of his piano professor at the New England Conservatory of Music.

    A few weeks ago I recommended to talented high school graduates that they choose a college close to home so that their families can enjoy them for a while longer. Charlie is an exception. I’m sure he could have gone to any school in this area, but it’s at Harvard that he has performed before and with those that will be able to help him most in a career. This included playing a duet with renowned cellist, Yo-Yo Ma, in a program at Harvard honoring Sen. Ted Kennedy.

    Just as did the people of Centralia and Chehalis when he was a child trying to crawl up on the piano bench, those of New England have taken him to their hearts and praise his talent. He has been the subject of an article in the Harvard student newspaper, and he has received what I would call a fan letter from the president of Harvard. (If I had ever received a letter from the president of the college I attended, I would have opened it with trepidation.)

    Recently, he was one of two receiving the Gilmore Artist Award for 2010, given to those under the age of 22. It is based on a “discreet” evaluation done of numerous performances. Each recipient receives a $15,000 grant to further his education, plus a commission for $10,000 for a solo work to be composed just for him.

    It’s a heady time for a young man who still keeps his humility, and it has elicited smiles of pride and excitement from his parents and sister and all of those in the Twin Cities who still claim him as one of ours.

    Where’s Merce? In New York City, Centralia’s most famous son isn’t letting old age keep him from doing what he does best. The New Yorker magazine this spring reported, “The legendary choreographer continues to work out astonishing, novel ways for bodies to move. He celebrates his ninetieth birthday with a premiere at BAM, “Nearly Ninety,” joined by the rock group Sonic Youth and Led Zeppelin’s John Paul Jones.”

    And his home town, Centralia, continues to ignore his existence.

    Where’s Mickey? Since Vader declared war on its estimated 120 feral cats I’ve kept an alert ear toward the southwest, waiting to hear a bacchanalian cry or “par–TY! par-TY!” from the mice in that area. Nothing yet. Perhaps Mickey and Minnie, who were created shortly after I was, have converted to the more sedate, controlled life of that community of 600 souls.

    Where’s Saturday’s Child? From his humble hut on K Street, he’s beginning his seventh year of grinding out a weekly column for The Chronicle. And what is even more shocking: some of you are still reading it.

    Gordon Aadland, Centralia, was a longtime Centralia College faculty member and publicist.