It happened seven years ago, but disturbed my sleep one recent morning.

He was standing in a square, raised wooden booth at a small county fair in Tennessee, beneath a banner proclaiming “Peter Breck, former star Nick Barkley on TV’s The Big Valley.” A narrow counter ran around the booth so he could write on photos of himself and locals could lean.

His box was just inside the main gate, so everyone had to walk right past him, and most did — either too young to remember or too disinterested to stop.

Breck had starred in three television shows: Black Saddle, The Big Valley, and The Secret Empire. Forgive the pun, but Black Saddle was so lame it ran less than a season (January 1959 to Sept. 1960). The premise was that a former gunslinger (Breck) lost his brothers in a gunfight, so he became a lawyer, carrying law books in his saddlebag — which I found odd because the show was set in a single town. What self-respecting lawyer would work out of his horse? Maybe the producer misspelled “house” and the screenwriters ran with it.

However, The Big Valley (1965 – 1969) was a hit, at least for those entertained by a Bonanza knock-off with women on the ranch. A stern Barbara Stanwick imitated Ben Cartwright, Breck played one of the sons, and Linda Evans fluffed up the scenery as a breathy-voiced, blonde vixen, no doubt written in so guys would watch.

The Secret Empire was an unmitigated flop (1979; only eight episodes saw airtime). Breck played the marshal of Cheyenne, Wyo., beneath which lurked a demonic empire run by Mark Leonard (Spock’s father Sarek in the first Star Trek series). Such a plot might explain a few missing persons and stagecoach wrecks, but I doubt the budget of a show that weird could have supported the caliber of writers it needed to survive.

Nevertheless, Breck’s credits include a plethora of TV guest appearances from 1958 to 1999 on such diverse shows as Gunsmoke, The Outer Limits, Fantasy Island, McMillan and Wife, SWAT, Mission Impossible, 77 Sunset Strip, and even Sea Hunt. One Web site, wildestwesterns.com, described Breck as “television’s toughest cowboy,” a handsome football-player-turned-actor who could draw a gun in 16/100 of a second and perform his own stunts.

The man in the box, though, was but a fuzzy reflection of someone who used to be someone else: Dyed hair a little too stiff, wrinkled face bespeaking excess sun and hard living, and sad eyes that seemed to plead for validation as more than a has-been on display.

Including 15 years of social work, I’ve never seen a more pitiful person.

Either Breck lacked interpersonal skills (which I doubt) or was so demoralized he didn’t have the energy to chat. I watched one man walk up, saying nothing. Breck reached under the counter, pulled out a pre-autographed black and white glossy of earlier times, and in complete silence half-tossed it forward with an impersonal, defeated, “Here’s all I’ve got” kind of motion.

So I walked up to try to say something nice.

I’d never really admired his work because I didn’t like his Big Valley character — my immature flaw of connecting actors to their roles. But I’d always liked Neville Brand, an “also starring” actor in black and white movies, and later the gravel-voiced Texas Ranger on TV’s Laredo. So I asked Breck if he and Brand had ever worked together, adding that I thought they would make a good team, which I did.

He just stood there and stared at me deadfaced, either not knowing what to say or perhaps so awestruck over someone actually speaking to him that he was savoring the moment. Another guy walked up for a tossed photo. I stood firm, so Breck finally addressed me: “Yes, I know Neville, but we’ve never worked together.” He didn’t offer anything more and I didn’t ask. But I did thank him for coming to be with us at our little fair, knowing full well he was there only because the committee paid him, but wanting to sound hospitable and somehow to acknowledge him.

It was the lousiest county fair I’ve ever attended. And not because there was little to do — not even a chicken display — or because my marriage was on the skids, or because we needed rain and a cloud of foot-stirred dust had peppered my snow cone. The fair was lousy because the main gate featured a man sadly passing out photos of a bygone era, making a living as best he could based on who he used to be.

For me, watching him was every bit as sad as my day at the Cincinnati zoo, spent heart-crushed over beautiful, bored creatures who belonged in other climates, free from the noise and exhaust of a next-door interstate, and deserving rich, full lives — not caged to be gawked at by a race of beings too stupid or uncaring to take them back home.

And that night at the fair, my heart was forever imprinted with the plight of a talented man who had his five minutes of fame, then struggled in a wooden box to reclaim or at least recall better times.

On my way out, having long since ditched my muddy snow cone, I tried to speak or at least wave good evening, but Breck didn’t see me. He was busy tossing another photo, surviving the night.

(Lew Garnett has a home in Maggie Valley. He can be reached at lgar@triad.rr.com.)