My wife once led an effort to do oral histories of old timers, the movers and shakers of yesteryear.
I decided to help out, but not with aging movers and shakers of times gone by.
I started with my barber Johnny Gibson. Johnny had learned his trade as a member of the 101st Airborne during World War II chopping the locks of those he served with, including the buddy he got shot down with behind enemy lines.
They squirreled together in the rubbled remains of a house for days. Without food they finally made a break for it, back through German lines.
Somehow, they both survived, and Johnny would keep cutting locks at his local shop, becoming the most popular barber in town.
Many years later Johnny had enough money to take a trip back east, see some of the sights he’d missed on his way to war.
In New York, he dropped in to say hello to his old friend from the rubble but was sternly stopped by a matron insisting that he was far to busy to receive any unscheduled guests.
“Well,” Johnny said, “Please, just let him know that Johnny Gibson stopped by to say hello,” and then walked out the door and on down 5th Avenue.
Two blocks down the road, he could hear his name being screamed as his old buddy came blasting out his store door.
“JOHNNY, JOHNNY WHERE ARE YOU!”
Johnny turned around to see who it was.
Charles Louise Tiffany and he spent the next two days touring New York City.
Richard Kimball
Sign up on my Blog at: richardkimball.org
or
Medium.com at: https://medium.com/@daffieduck2016