The Comanche Chief

On the road I've passed through many a small dusty little town. Just this side of Stephenville, I pulled into a parking space on the town square in front of a old barber shop in Comanche, TX (town of 4200 & change). Kirkland Barber Shop. Given my "evolved" hairline, I've gone to the buzz cut. I now LOVE barber shops cuz it brings back memories from sitting on the wooden board of Lonnie Etheridge's, as a kid. He'd lay it across the arms of the chair for little guys (like me) so I'd be high enough for my hair cuttin (and I can still smell that smell of aftershave in the room). Anyways, I go in and sit there while a coupla other guys get their hair cut talking about local town stuff. All pretty quite and low key. It looks to be a tired old building but not dirty. Just old. Finally rolls around to me and William Kirkland asks me what I want. I want the #2 blade all over (I prefer a #3 for my "winter coat"). William says he's been cutting hair on the square for 50 years. There were 11 Barbers when he started but now down to 2. He asked where I's from and I told him my deal. He was like "I bet a woman would like to keep you company on that trip". I said I don't have room for the baggage ;). We settled up for the $10 cut and after a firm handshake and sincere goodbye from William, I walked over to the "Comanche Chief". That's the local paper. This old building had been updated but still had all of the old fixtures, old counters,the old typeset and stuff on display, antler's and old framed articles (with local books that sat about the place). Woody Ormsby had been working there for the last 46 years (pictured above)! He was a sweet older man that had "the shakes" just a little but that hadn't seem to affect him too much. He was telling me how they used to do the printing and how it had changed over the years (mostly for the better). Front page this week talked about the Indians Football scrimmage, a late night robbery of the Chicken Express on West Central avenue and a marijuana seizure found on a "domestic dispute" call "Deputies located 3 plants. One plant had grown to just over 5 feet tall! (should you really be taking pot away from those typa guys?). "The Marijuana has been transfered to the DPS lab for testing and weight" (and then promptly smoked, I'd bet). Me and Woody talked for a while about his 4 grown kids, county fairs, the "Pow Wow" coming up on Saturday and how in the old days JC Wilkerson, Sr. (1st of the 3 generations of owners) would walk around the courthouse square seeing who all was in visiting from the various towns for the inclusion into his weekly paper. Great 2 hour visit.
OH, David Kersh (Ex-Curb star of "Breaking Hearts and Taking Names" fame) and his wife, Kerry Harvick (ex-I can't really recall), now live here! I just read that :) He runs a local feed store. Now, ain't that something?
That's about all. I'm not creative enough to say anything about the music that I saw on this night that'd make it of much interest to you guys. Stephenville DID have a beautiful town square (that was for once actually occupied!) and just a immaculate Courthouse (I'll post a pic). Headed into Fort Worth, Texas/Cowtown, USA!