The Istoriaphile’s Corner

You kids remember the Andy Griffith show? Set in Mayberry, North Carolina? The barber in that show was a funny guy named Floyd. Well Grandfield had a funny barber too, only his name was Lloyd. And he was sweet on a gal named Lisa. Now, Lisa worked in an office, in Grandfield. And she was married to somebody else. Fact is, Lloyd was married too. But that didn’t change how he acted around Lisa! Like this one time… I was at the barbershop, getting my hair cut. Harvest was going on, and Grandfield was full of people; so full, Lloyd had this other barber working with him. Both of them, cutting hair, fast as they could, and a bunch of men still waiting in line. Well, my turn came up, and instead of old Lloyd, I got the other barber, Harold. And this young guy working the harvest, up from Mexico I think, he was sitting in Lloyd’s chair. Now, the Mexican fella didn’t speak much English, but he pointed to a picture Lloyd had on the wall to show he wanted a crew cut. So, Lloyd got out his hair clippers. My, that kid had a thick head of…

You know Grandfield’s always been a small place. Shoot, there were only sixteen in my graduating class. And of that bunch, only four of us were boys. I liked that; it meant I had lots of girlfriends. But that also meant Jack, and Ick, and I got put in every school play and program Like the year, they cast us in the senior play. We weren’t seniors but, because we were boys, they cast us anyway. We only had little bitty parts when we had to be onstage. During the rest of the rehearsals, we were supposed to wait in the auditorium. Well, one afternoon, that teacher directing took forever getting to our scenes. That’s when we remembered the First Grade class was down the hall. I told you that school system was small! They taught all twelve grades in one building. And I don’t know if it was Ick, or Jack, or me, but one of us thought we’d wake up the first grade. First, we snuck out the side door of the Auditorium into a school hall. I remember, there were only three doors on that hall: our side door, the one to the janitor’s closet, and the…