Gaetano John “Gaten” Matarazzo III currently stars as Dustin Henderson in the Netflix science-fiction drama series Stranger Things. My wife and I recently attended an Outstanding In The Field dinner on the Vancouver, B.C. waterfront. We had strategically picked a spot at the very end of the 280-seat table, when four strangers rudely moved our designated plates to accommodate their group. I ended up in the head seat and could barely see the other end. During the course of the evening several people thought that I was a celebrity, so they came up to introduce themselves. As it turned out, we were in the company of several television producers involved with shows like, “The Man In The High Castle,” and “Stranger Things.” They thought I looked like the grown-up (more like old man) version of Dustin, and captured my curiosity as we talked more about their work. 

When I got home from the trip, I immediately watched The Man In The High Castle that turned out to be a bit too Sci-Fi for my tastes, introducing me to the concept of parallel universes. So, you can be two places at once! Stranger Things was even stranger. It took place in Hawkins, Indiana, a fictional town made-up by the Duffer Brother creators. To me, nothing can be more down to earth than my Indiana home, but instead it was infiltrated by dangerous Russian scientists. My teenage doppelganger, Dustin was a toothless nerd on a quest for the supernatural, aided by a girl with psychokinetic abilities. As they began to experience weird electrical phenomenon associated with spineless, slithering, underworld creatures, my office equipment began to sympathetically malfunction. My Wi-Fi needed to be reset several times, my printer still won’t work, my computer had to be rebooted, and my T.V. set regularly lost its cable signal. Never has it been more difficult to finish watching a show! Stranger Things have never happened!

As I’ve watched Dustin mature through all 3 seasons, he’s grown some teeth, gotten braces, developed a take-charge attitude, sang a duet with his girlfriend Suzie, and performed some heroic acts. I’m proud to see him as the younger me. The bottom line is that even though these same evil Russians are reportedly behind the FaceApp, if Gaten Matarazzo a.k.a. Dustin were to use it for aging, he’d apparently look just like me today. He’s in fact exactly 50 years younger, as he prepares for Season 4. Even though I haven’t understood most of the story, I still now have this bond with him worthy of getting me through another creepy season of Soviet-created monsters and young love – if my T.V. holds up!