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The Walking Man leaves a solitary impression

The familiar stranger lived alone and died alone, but he left an impression nonetheless.

By JON WILSON
Published January 23, 2005

ST. PETERSBURG - Joe Nemeth walked alone. For more than 30 years, he hiked north St. Petersburg streets. He sought no company and rarely spoke.

People who first saw him as children grew up and had children of their own.

And still they saw the Walking Man, sometimes bending to pick up stray coins he'd spied, always neatly dressed, black oxfords striking the sidewalk all day long, from Gateway to Park Boulevard, on Fourth Street, as far west as Tyrone Square Mall.

"This guy, I swear to God he never aged. It was like something out of the Twilight Zone," said Danny Rudderham, 46, who was 15 the first time he saw the man he and his friends called Johnny Walker.

Few but the mail carriers knew his real name.

But he was so much a part of the Gateway neighborhood that when he didn't appear for a few days last month, people began to worry.

"He was a piece of our everyday scenery here. You feel like you know him, but you don't know him," said Kathleen Gray, who had lived near Nemeth for 25 years.

Gray and mail carrier Elizabeth Arnold tried some sleuthing. Arnold noticed the mail was piling up. She had been delivering for two years, and it wasn't like Nemeth to let his correspondence sit, however small the stack. The two called police, who checked Nemeth's house. Nemeth wasn't there, but nothing seemed amiss. An officer saw a bed through a window. It was unoccupied and neatly made.

No one connected, or even recalled a brief St. Petersburg Times story Dec. 11 about a series of traffic accidents on a rainy Dec. 10, one of which killed an unidentified pedestrian on U.S. 19 at 62nd Avenue N.

No one made anything of a Dec. 15 three-line obituary, which mentioned no accident and said the deceased, Joe Nemeth, had no known survivors.

It wasn't until the day after Christmas that someone called St. Petersburg police from St. Louis. It was Richard Nemeth. He hadn't heard from his brother and was concerned.

Following up, the police learned a few days later from the Florida Highway Patrol that a car had struck Nemeth at 4:21 p.m. Dec. 10. According to the official report, he stepped off the intersection's northeast corner. A car westbound on 62nd Avenue hit him, then ran over him. He died in a hospital soon afterward.

Charges were not filed, but investigations can take up to 90 days before they are closed, said a Highway Patrol spokesman.

The news, said Gray, spread. "The Walking Man's dead. The Walking Man's dead." It stunned people.

"It bummed me out," Rudderham said.

Joe Nemeth, 81, was buried Dec. 29 at Florida National Cemetery in Bushnell. Officials still hadn't found relatives. Only workers were at the burial.

Records say he was a corporal in the Marine Corps who served in World War II . . .

. . . "We always regarded him as sort of a war hero," said Richard Nemeth, 79. He didn't know about medals his brother might have won. But Joe Nemeth fought with the 2nd Marine Division in the South Pacific, taking part in the grim battles of Tarawa, Tinian and Saipan. A kamikaze struck his ship near Okinawa.

Joe Nemeth was born on May 30, 1923, in Pilot Knob, Mo., the son of Hungarian immigrants. He attended Central College in Fayette, Mo. After the war, he graduated from George Washington University and went to work for the U.S. government.

"Industrial relations," said Richard Nemeth.

His brother spent some time in Japan, then retired and moved to St. Petersburg for the climate.

In 1973, records show, he bought a house for $17,500 in the Gateway area.

From then until the day he died, he lived a steady life.

His property taxes are up to date, and the registered Republican voted in the 2004 election, records show. Once or twice, city inspectors stopped by to inquire about thick foliage in his yard. A day or two before the accident, he visited a dentist to have two gold crowns replaced.

He kept in touch with relatives in St. Louis through Christmas and birthday cards. Richard Nemeth visited his brother once in St. Petersburg, and one time Joe paid a visit to St. Louis.

He never married, said Richard Nemeth, and he preferred to be alone.

Even Joe Nemeth's next-door neighbors knew little about him. Joe Stanley said Nemeth once talked to his dogs through the fence, exchanging pleasantries with Elwood, a Jack Russell terrier, and Otis, a basset hound.

"He was really a very quiet man," said Arnold, the mail carrier. "It took months of delivering mail before he'd even talk to me."

Kathleen Gray said she sometimes saw him in a supermarket pushing a cart with cans of vegetables and soup. She would say hi, but received only the shyest of responses.

A slight, slender man, Nemeth appeared to be in great shape, said those who saw him regularly. On rainy days, he carried an umbrella. He was tanned from time in the sun and was often taken to be much younger.

Richard Nemeth and his wife visited Florida National Cemetery this month. They placed some small American flags and artificial flowers at the grave. A cemetery spokesman said Joe Nemeth's name will be read at a memorial service and a bell tolled for him.

The Walking Man's old neighborhood will miss him, Gray said. He became part of the community fabric, somehow connecting people. Seeing him became a ritual, comforting in its way.

"He's gone through life. Someone needs to care," Gray said. "To me, it's just sad. I don't know. I can't help it."

She plans to send a sympathy card to St. Louis in memory of a man she knew only by sight, but who became part of her life.

[Last modified January 23, 2005, 00:14:21]