There are several ongoing series on the agent b files...such as "The Legend Of", "Dream Reports", and more recently "The Table Report". A new series I'm introducing now is "Obi-Wan Tales". This is inspired by a recent comment by the stay-at-home mom...something about encouraging me to tell people's stories. I write about Obi-Wan a lot since he's my best friend and I see him every day, usually twice. But I've yet had a reason to retell the tales of his life as he's told them to me. And since he's 88 years old, there's a few tales to share.
Skipper
One of my favorite pastimes is looking at photos. Even lousy snapshots in people's photo albums. It always makes me wonder who are the people I'm looking at, what were they thinking at the moment the camera snapped, and where are they now.
Obi-Wan has 4 photo albums plus a shoe box full of old B&W photos. I love it. He use to take his camera to work with him and take photos of his coworkers at the various service stations around the fair mother city he worked at for 30 years. It's cool seeing Obi-Wan all young with a cigar in his mouth and wearing some service station uniform while working on some 1950's car.
Anyway, in one photo album there was this kid who looked 9 or 10 standing in Obi-Wan's yard with a toy truck. It was obviously from the 1970's as the kid had this huge fro and wearing 70's clothes with cut-offs. "Who's this?" I ask.
"Oh. I forgot his name. I called him Skipper".
There were a few other photos of Skipper in front of a Christmas tree. "So who's Skipper?" I ask.
"He was a boy my wife & I tried to raise for a couple of years. He was as wild as a whip. He didn't have a dad and his mother was put away for a while."
"So what ever happened to Skipper?"
"Well, he came by about three years ago. Hadn't seen him since he was little. He just got out of the state pen after 12 years or so. He had come by to thank me for trying to raise him."
I'm still amazed that somewhere out there is a guy who's real name wasn't remembered. But Obi-Wan had enough effect on Skipper to make him want to find Obi-Wan years later and thank him for something that seemed like a failed venture.
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I could sit and listen for days at people's stories...especially elderly people. Everyone has a story...everyone needs not only to tell it...but for someone to truly listen to it.
It is amazing to me when things we think are failures turn out to be success in someone else's eyes.
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