 Kim Peek, now 53 years old, was screenwriter Barry Morrow’s inspiration for the Oscar-winning film, Rain Man. While Dustin Hoffman played the role of an adult with autism, Kim is not autistic, he’s a megasavant. True to the film’s depiction, Kim has a photographic memory and an uncanny ability to recall and recite volumes of information.
Sandy Whittle, Financial Service Professional with New York Life, is the Central Coast Rotary District 5230 Secretary and the person responsible for bringing Kim Peek to the Monterey Peninsula in October 2004. Kim, his father Fran and Barry Morrow were speakers at the Rotary International District 5230 conference at the Hyatt Regency in Monterey. Whittle was told of Kim Peek by a fellow Rotarian who had met him at another conference. “The more I learned about Kim and his message of respecting differences in others and treating them like you want to be treated, the more I knew he would be a great fit for our conference.”
 “I met the Peeks at the Monterey airport,” says Whittle. “As we drove to Salinas, Kim recited the names of all the roads we would travel on as well as other facts that he had read about the area. A friend graciously agreed to let us borrow his vintage Buick Roadmaster, the same car that “Rain Man’s” father owned and the model driven by Tom Cruise and Dustin Hoffman in the film. When we pulled into the parking lot of the Star Market in Salinas and he saw the car, he said, ‘I get to be the Rain Man.’ He was as proud as a peacock.”
At his first stop at the hospital he was given a few issues of Lifeline Magazine along with other articles about the hospital and the community. In the span of a few minutes, Kim had scanned all of the materials and was ready to continue his tour. When Kim and the group entered the hospital, he asked which building they were in and then announced, “This hospital was opened in 1953 by a man who grew lettuce,” speaking of Bruce Church, one of the hospitals founders.
Arrangements had been made for Kim to tour the hospital and have both Computer Aided Tomography (CT) and Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scans in the hospital’s Diagnostic Imaging Department. The last scans done were at UCLA in 1988. The scans will enable physicians to monitor Kim’s overall health and may help scientists gain new information about the brain.
Michael Basse, MD, the Radiologist who oversaw the CT and MRI scans for Kim, says, “We can’t expect anatomic images of Kim’s brain to explain his unique abilities. I see many people  with similar congenital abnormalities and I am unaware of any of them having automatic calendars in their brain.”
After the Rotary event at which Kim Peek spoke, he took Sandy Whittle aside and said, “Sandra, those are good people.” “I’ve spoken to Kim several times since the event,” says Sandy, “and he always inquires about the people he met at Salinas Valley Memorial and says, ‘please tell them hello for me.’”
“He has the wit and intelligence of a sage with the humility and kindness of a child,” says Sandy. “I feel that being a member of Rotary gave me the opportunity to meet him and that was an opportunity of a lifetime. Rotary is one big family. No matter where you go and someone sees the Rotary pin, you’re immediately friends.” |
Inspiration for movie “Rain Man”