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Originally Posted by TheLH
Sorry if I'm going off topic here, guys, but it got me thinking, what exactly did happen in the "8-year-gap" that CG mentioned?
I assume he probably did as much help as he could to other people before coming to Foster's, much like he did in the film on the way back to meet Larry for his rematch. And during that time, he would probably have been cemented as a sort of legend, like that judge mentioned.
This idea of Wilt becoming a sort of urban legend during that time reminds me of a book I once read called "Maniac Magee". It was about a boy called Jeffrey Magee, who, after his parents die in a trestle accident, is sent to his loathsome aunt and uncle who, because they are Catholic, can't divorce, and try to split the house in two (two toasters, two TV's, etc.) and try to have Jeffrey for themselves. During a school play eight years later, he runs away (after which we are told that noone knows what happened to him during a year-long gap).
After this period, he arrives in the town of Two Mills, a town so racially segrigated that one side of the town, called the West Side, is reserved entirly for White people and the opposite side, the East Side, reserved for Black people. He meets up with a black family, and moves in with them, much to their supprise. During their time with them, he performs amazing feats such as running on a rail and untieing a knot that noone else in the town could untie, causing him to become an urban legend and be known as "Maniac Magee".
I'll continue the story if you guys want, but what I'm saying is that during the time after he left Jordan and before the time he came to Foster's, maybe he helped out people so much that too became an urban legend?
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If you go by the photo album of Annual Foster's Photos from "The Big Picture", Wilt showed up at Foster's 22 years ago, two years after Madame Foster opened her home to unwanted/lost Imaginary Friends. HOWEVER, we learn that the incident in which Wilt was injured by Larry, and separated from Jordan, took place 30 years ago, according to Larry, anyway. This leaves a period of eight years in between, so the question is, what happened to Wilt during that time. Obviously, he would have spent some of it in a hospital, after having his left arm amputated, and perhaps some sort of rehab facility, where he would have learned how to cope with just one arm and one functioning eye, but no rehab center is going to keep someone for eight years, so he had to have done something to survive during that time. We don't know if he made his own way out West to where Foster's is located and found the place on his own, or if someone eventually took him there, or paid his way to get there.
Wilt's "legend" status took place during the movie, as he made his way cross-country on that rusty old lawnmower, NOT during that eight-year-period between him being injured and arriving at Foster's. It was a joke, really, him being considered a "legend" by the people of the small town(where obviously there were no lawnmowers or lawn-care specialists)because he, being Wilt, felt he needed to help out by annonymously cutting the grass for everyone, a good deed that the judge felt needed rewarding by releasing Wilt and dropping the charges against him. His status as a "legend" was in that little town only, and due solely to that one incident. There's nothing in the judge's speech to indicate he'd heard of Wilt except because of that. He even refers to Wilt as "The Lawn Ranger"!
pitbulllady