Barber Shop Tales

"Do you ever go to the Livestock Auction here?" my husband asked his friendly barber, a man from our church.  We had been helping at a work-day for the church that morning, and Howard wanted to get his haircut in this small Oklahoma town where both the church and barbershop are located. I told him I would meet him there after I checked out a garage sale with two of the other volunteers.

"What?" said the barber, who is quite hard-of-hearing.  Another customer, obviously a local resident,  clarified loudly, "The sale!  He wants to know about the livestock sale!"

Evidently, this was a familiar subject to the talkative patron, for he told us who used to own the auction business  back in the day.  "Old Sam (I'll call him) had a habit of barbecuing beef after the sale, and he and his cronies would wash it down with whiskey," he began.  Then, warming to his story, he said that one day after they had had their fill, one of the cowboys (good ol' boys, as they were known in Mississippi) who owned a  pick-up truck was driving in front of old Sam to keep him on the road going home.

He said Old Sam was driving so badly, a cop stopped them and had the auction owner get out of the car. "Old Sam insisted he was trying to keep the man in front of him on the road.  When the officer pronounced him drunk, they ended up wrestling in the ditch.  He got the best of the cop, jumped in his car and took off for home!" With obvious relish, we were told that the officer recovered and began shooting at the rapidly disappearing tail lights. "They went on home, and the next morning, a friend talked Sam into turning himself in!"

"They didn't do anything to him, though," he laughed, "He was such a good guy...if you needed a hundred dollars, he would just pull it out of his pocket and give it to you."  He went on, "One of his friends had a bumper sticker made up that said, 'Don't shoot! Just passin' though!' Pretty soon everybody in town had one!"  About that time my phone rang, and I took it to the porch for a long conversation with my daughter until my husband came out.

Later, I thought about the bumper sticker.  It made me think of the song, "This World is Not My Home, I'm Just Passing Through."  It's nice to have friends in this world who regard you fondly, but I would rather be able to say, like the words of the song, "The angels beckon me, to Heaven's open door, and  I can't feel at home in this world anymore."  Hopefully, the old auctioneer was able to say that, and heard it, too, when his earthly days were over.