Junto Boys

It looks like my Uncle's barber shop is being featured on segment for a new travel channel show starring that guy from Cheers.

It’s interesting that there is a Joe DiMaggio reference in the article, because my father still talks about seeing DiMaggio in 1951 in his last game at the old Commiskey Park. Dad said that he patted him on the back as he ran from the clubhouse to the field. 16 year-old Uncle Larry took my 8 year-old father to that game. Though eight years apart, they many times hopped on a train in the 1950s from their small Indiana town and traveled to Chicago. Times were different. Their parents never worried. Dad always talks about having the best Pizza at a small Italian place called, “Sunny Italy.” When he took us to Chicago in the 1980s, he would search the directory every time for Sunny Italy, but it was already out of business.

My Uncle Larry is really a funny guy, much like my own father, but he hasn't once visited Florida since we moved in 1986. In all fairness, my father hasn't been back to Indiana either. When I was in high school my Uncle Larry made me laugh so much at a family gathering that I was started laughing two days later in Health Class when I remembered it. The teacher thought I was goofing off and moved me to the other side of the room.

My dad hasn’t talked to his only brother on the phone in over ten years. I can’t imagine they are mad at each other. They are both easy-going and neither of them has a big ego. Maybe there is some ancient issue that they are holding against one another, but it is probably just the result of two introverted guys that won’t pick up the phone. I think of the movie THE STRAIGHT STORY.

The shame of this newspaper story is that the photo isn't composed well, Uncle Larry isn’t pictured, and they make him out to be 20 years younger than his actual age. Well, at least he likes the last part.