Me and Bill

I asked Bill if he got into music by way of his parents, as many Hawaiian-born children had. He then proceeded to tell me that, in fact, his father was a musician, but he never met the man until his father was 80 years old.

He told me that his mother had told him his father was a barber and lived in San Francisico. So when in SF, Bill proceeded to check out every barbershop in town he could find, asking the barbers if they knew of his father.

He searched and searched and eventually wound up at this large barbershop downtown. Sure enough, after asking a barber if he knew a barber named Tapia, one hair trimmer asked "are you Willie?". To which Bill replied "why, yes".

The old barber said that 'yeah', he knew your father and that he had a whole scrapbook filled with articles he'd cut out about your musical accomplishments.

Bill eventually found his father at an apartment in SF. Bill said at first he want to ask the son-of-a-bitch (his words) why he deserted the family at such an inopportune time. But Bill decided to shrug it off, and just get to know the ol' man.

Bill's dad asked if he had his ukulele with him, to which Bill said 'no'. At that point his father pulled out a large harmonica and began playing it like a virtuoso.

I could tell by Bill's body language that he was very impressed with his father' musical ability, and for a very short time felt as though they had bonded. To which I felt as though I had intruded upon a very private moment...

[ Edited by: Tiki_Bong on 2004-12-10 21:21 ]

What a great moment reading that story with the pic of you two.

Thanks for letting us in on it.

See you soon, braddah.

That's a great story, I wanna know more...