Jim Nabors got off the flight from Hawaii where he was actually spending time with his good friend Carol Burnett. I never really realized this about Gomer, but at least this night he seemed well….how do I put it delicately…a bit light in the loafers…as Jerry Seinfeld would say, “Not there’s anything wrong with that!”
I must say that for the several minutes we talked while coming from the gates and getting his baggage, he was very kind, even went so far as to say that he bet my mom and he would make great friends after I told him why I wanted his picture. Still, the whole encounter left me with the impression that his was either inibriated or bordering on flamboyant. Looking back on it now, it may have been both.
The other very strange thing about this is what happened after I took this picture. It was the last picture on this particular roll of film, and after I snapped the photo by the Traveler’s Aide Desk, a thought came to me that said, “OK, your done.” It was a very overwhelming thought, and it puzzled me for several hours while on post. Then, at about 12:30am, as I was walking from baggage to ticketing at United’s old LAX terminal, I stopped dead and my tracks, as if (to go Star Wars on you here) there was a disturbance in the Force. It came over me at just about the same spot as I took the picture of Jim Nabors. At the time I couldn’t figure it out.
I mentioned it to some of the other people with whom I worked, and it kept nagging at me all night long. When I got off at 5 in the morning, I caught the shuttle bus over to where the regular RTD bus lines and Airport Express Buses waited at their layover point, caught the first RTD that ran East on Century Boulevard to downtown LA, all the time thinking about that “disturbance”. I got off to change buses at Crenshaw Boulevard not too far away from the Crenshaw Christian Center (Dr. Frederick K Price’s Faith Dome) and waited for the bus to take me North onto Vine St, and my stop several blocks South of Hollywood and Vine.
