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Adalbert is a forum for me, to post ephemera, photography, poetry, occasional travel notes, and various spontaneous motions. Cover photo: Parsonage where my great-grandfather spent his early years. Taken near Liegnitz, Silesia, ca. 1870. The "xothique" portion of the web address is a nod to Clark Ashton Smith's fictional continent of Zothique.

Thursday, August 17, 2017

Sonny Jimmy


On 6 May, 2017, I visited my long-time barber, whom I knew variously as "Sonny" and "Jimmy," for a tonsorial trip. I had the sudden idea to take a photo of him; which I incorporated into the digital collage above. I had never before snapped a picture of him, in all the years I knew him, stretching back deep into the Bill Clinton era.

The next time I wended my way to his shop, around the solstice, I noticed the traditional striped barber pole was unlit. In the window lay a sign announcing his memorial, which had already transpired the following week.

During the 2008 presidential campaign, he placed Obama and Hillary signs in his barbershop window, side-by-side.

A kind of extradimensional Floyd the Barber, his shop packed with Americana such as a Norman Rockwell print, baseball caps, and quaint signs, his unpredictability and unbroken idiosyncrasies will be missed by this one.

To use a phrase, one which Poe quoted, In pace requiescat!