When you first meet Charlie Stout, a 29-year veteran of the United States Postal Service, you might find him in his U.S. government-regulated United States Postal Worker uniform. Hidden behind the front counter of the Rushville Post Office, he’s one of the friendly faces you see when you first walk in to mail your parcels, pick up stamps or check your mailbox.

But behind the postal uniform, the packages that his beloved customers bring in, the monstrous mailing bins ... there’s a lot more to Charlie Stout.

You may not notice his tie-dyed belt buckle with a peace sign on it. You may not notice the colorful “KISS” tattoo on his leg if his regulation blue pants are hiding it. And since he’s so busy talking about mail and shipping rates all of the time, you just might not know that outside of Charlie’s passion for his job in customer service he lives for music.

“I love music, and any chance I get to see something live, I’m going,” Stout said.

He lists his favorite artists/bands of all time as the Moody Blues, Mary Ann Faithful and Cream. His favorite song of all time is “Moonlight Drive” by the Doors.

But none of the above bands can hold a torch to the love Charlie Stout, U.S. Postal Employee, has for KISS.

He’s seen the rock band 17 times, once in Terre Haute, the rest in Indianapolis.

“It’s the best rock and roll show of all time, bar none,” Stout said. “The first time I heard their music it was just powerful.”

His admiration for the band grew and grew.

His very first KISS concert also featured a band no one had ever heard of as the opening act.

“I didn’t even know what the name of the band was at the moment, all I saw was this guy coming out on the stage with a schoolboy uniform, a purse and knee socks, and I thought, ‘Oh my God, what in the world am I getting myself into,” he said. “But that maniac turned out to be Angus Young, and AC/DC ended up just blowing that whole place away.”

Stout remembered a moment in the concert in which the larger-than-life group became one with the crowd.

“I remember the bass player and Angus Young put Von Scott on their shoulders and just went running through the upper mezzanine,” he said.

Charlie’s also seen Ted Nugent, Skid Row, Queensryche, Wendy O. Williams and the Plasmatics, the Michael Stanley Band, Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Inventions and Econoline Crush.

He was also present for the Ramones during their Farewell Tour at the Vogue in Indianapolis.

Vanilla Fudge was his first concert; that was back on Dec. 7, 1969 at the New Castle Fieldhouse.

He also saw the Eagles, right after Joe Walsh joined the group in 1977.

His most amazing experience happened when he met a rock and roll legend.

“I drove all the way up to Indianapolis to the State Fairgrounds with some friends who had tickets to the Janis Joplin show,” he said. “I didn’t have a ticket, and I had heard that the show was sold out, but I went anyway. Well, I got to the ticket window, and of course, they were sold out, so all of my friends went in without me.”

Charlie began to mope around the parking lot, feeling totally bummed out and sorry for himself, not to mention freezing as it was cold outside.

Suddenly, a white stretch limousine pulled up, and Charlie’s jaw dropped when he saw the woman with a bottle of Southern Comfort in her hand get out of the car.

It was Janis.

“She said ‘Why are you moping around out here instead of waiting for the concert to start?’” he recalled. “I told her I didn’t have a ticket.”

Janis smiled at him and said, “Well, I’m going to give you something right now that nobody else in there would ever be able to experience being in there with a ticket.”

And she bent down and kissed him on the cheek. She left with her entourage and had a great show that Charlie could only faintly hear from the parking lot.

“All of my friends came back and I said, ‘You’re never going to believe what just happened!’ and I told them the story and sat there and waited for them to call me a liar, but they didn’t,” he said. “They all just looked at each other like a pack of deer in the headlights of a semi, because what they had heard in the opening of the concert suddenly connected.”

At the beginning of the show, Janis asked everyone how they were doing, and the crowd did their little thing back, and she said, “Well, you all might be having a good time in here, but there’s a guy out in the parking lot who just had a kiss on the cheek from me, so I’d say he has you all beat even though he didn’t have a ticket.”

“They knew I wasn’t lying,” he said.

Charlie now puts his love for music to good use as a member of the Rushville Riverside Park Amphitheater Committee. He was approached by a few members of the board to join, as he puts it, “probably because I love music as much as I do.”

“I asked them, ‘Are you sure you want me?’ and then it was a matter of ‘Just let me know where and when and I will be there.’”

He spends a 17-hour day at the amphitheater every time there is a concert, painstakingly preparing the venue for the next talented artist or group that comes through, and loves every minute of it.

“Seeing people’s faces when they’re listening to the music and having a great time is worth it to me,” he said. “It’s the best publicized secret in Rush County. I always tell the board that since I’ve been a part of this group I feel like I’ve been born again.”

He and his wife of almost 30 years, Peg, also enjoy a little side job.

“We are part owners of an alpaca farm in Andersonville with my sister,” he said. “Yeah, alpacas! It’s a blast.”

The Whatapaca! Farm is going into its third year of operation, and Charlie loves it.

“My sister talked to me about it for two years before I said I’d do it. I wanted to see all the facts and figures, of course,” he said. “But then I went and actually saw the animals and I was hooked.”

Add alpaca farmer to music enthusiast, amphitheater committee member and the Rushville Post Office’s full-time window clerk since 1984 and you’ve got Charlie Stout.



Elizabeth Gist can be contacted at elizabeth.gist@rushvillerepublican.com or at (765) 932-3111 ext. 109. Add a comment to this story at www.rushvillerepublican.com.