Classic film 'Stand by Me' celebrated.

Byline: Andrea Damewood The Register-Guard

BROWNSVILLE - The movie "Stand by Me" ends with the film's narrator saying, "I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was 12."

But, unlike Rob Reiner's coming-of-age classic in which the four young mates part ways not long after their iconic hunt for the body of a missing boy, childhood buddies Erik Christeson and Shawn Fuhr are still friends.

Now in their mid-30s, the two have stood by each other, and also by their favorite movie.

The pair drove 10 hours from their homes in California so they could attend Saturday's "Stand by Me" celebration in Brownsville, where the Steven King novella was transformed into an Oscar-nominated film more than two decades ago.

They were the same age as the characters, played by Wil Wheaton, Jerry O'Connell, Corey Feldman and the late River Phoenix, when the movie was released in 1986, they said. And though the movie was set in 1959, they said the antics of young boys never change.

"It's stuff we did as kids: mailbox baseball, going on hikes, lying to our parents, camping out," Christeson said.

They re-enacted their favorite scenes from the film Saturday for the celebration's scavenger hunt, which, among many tasks, required teams to photograph themselves dodging trains and spitting water on each other's faces. They also had to pose with the turquoise 1950 Studebaker used in the "chicken" scene - one of the more recognizable faces among about 40 cast and crew attending Saturday's event.

Nonetheless, hundreds of fans, toting cameras and ice-cold Cokes in glass bottles, swarmed the cast.

Susan Thorpe-Vargas, who played the fat lady who threw up into her purse after the blueberry pie eating contest, enjoyed the attention. Thorpe-Vargas was studying microbiology at the University of Oregon and auditioned as a lark.

"I didn't care if I got the job or not," she said. `So they had me do my `Go Lardass, go!' - a huge line that took so much to remember - and Rob (Reiner) puts his arm around me and said, `Not bad for a microbiologist!' '

Now 61, she recalls capturing the grotesque scene in three takes, vomiting a concoction of cottage cheese and blueberry pie filling.

Others from the film's cast reminisced about spending time with the young stars.

Cameraman Ronald Vidor said Reiner tried to be a father figure to the cast, and would take them rafting and play baseball games on weekends.

He also said that the boys were, well, boys.

"The kids kept getting into fights off stage," Vidor said. "I remember Corey Feldman was the instigator a lot."

Shari Chinchen, who was then 21 and O'Connell's stand-in, also recalled the on-set squabbling. But she remembered Phoenix would often get his castmates arguing and then sit back and watch.

Chinchen - wearing a shirt with a photo of her and O'Connell looking uncannily alike in matching striped shirts - earned the nickname "stunt butt" in the movie: She had to jump a fence for the pudgy O'Connell after he proved unable to make the climb.

"It was a little humbling being the double for the fat kid," Chinchen said, adding she was a little nervous to see her derriere shown once again on a big screen for the celebration's outdoor showing. "If it didn't look big then, it will now!"

Sixty-year-old Charline Shipley of Brownsville said watching her town captured as what it looked like during her childhood makes her cry.

"Growing up here, we had the railroad tracks and the trestles," said Shipley, whose daughters were extras and played Monopoly with Phoenix. "I get emotional because it brings back memories. We didn't have the drugs and alcohol then. That was a very good age."

Though the Eisenhower era has faded, fans say the film's timeless debates - which seem so vital to boys of 12 - ring true. Who would emerge victorious in a fight: Mighty Mouse or Superman? If Mickey is a mouse, and Donald is a duck, what is Goofy? Can one really eat cherry flavored for the rest of one's life?

But the film's message rings even truer to the old friends.

"A lot of it has meaning still," said Fuhr, standing alongside Christeson. "Being as close as we have been over the years and going from being a kid to an adult, just like in the movie."