To say that "Johnny"--that's what we all called him--had an impact on thousands of people, is not an over-statement. He was a self-taught musician; he played and taught the piano and the guitar; he wrote and arranged hundreds of songs over his lifetime. He loved Nature, he was the original environmentalist--with all the good connotations. He could not tolerate thoughtless people: people that trashed the landscape were his bane. His knowledge of nature was only exceeded by his ability to infect you with some of that knowledge and a respect for nature. He had patience beyond belief: no question was ever a "dumb" question; and if he didn't know the answer--which was rare--he would say so and find the answer, and make sure you knew the answer. He liked all people, but he especially liked kids. He always had time for kids, in fact, he seemed to instinctively know which kids most needed his attention. If I look for a common thread to the kids that received his greatest attention, it was that they all--myself included--had a troubled home-life. I guess that it may have helped him handle the fact that he could not be with his own son, from his failed marriage: how very sad. 

I first met Johnny when I was six years old, before I had started school. It was spring and he had come to the neighborhood, and several of the older kids were going with him to the woods to collect --um, well something, I don't remember exactly what. But I do remember I wanted to go with him. I told him that I wanted to go, and he said that we would have to get permission from my mother. Mom was a bit apprehensive, to say the least: she asked the questions that any parent who doesn't want her child to get hurt would ask. John was use to apprehensive parents and knew the right words to use to calm their fears: I went with him. I had great fun; and I was "Hooked!"
 

Over the years I collected butterflies at Green Hill Cemetery, first using formaldehyde to kill the insects, and later cyanide. John gave us butterfly nets of his design and manufacture: it turns out that John made nets that worked better than a national manufacturer--Ward Scientific of New York City. He claimed that "Store bought" nets were made of a bright white netting with short handles. John had a local cabinet maker--Mr. Allen--make the handle and hoop, and he would sew, or have sewn, the nets out of bright white netting material. Then he would darken the gaudy white netting in hot boiling tea. When he finished he had the perfect net--one where the insect never knew what hit him...

Johnny had a great sense of humor, or more correctly; a great sense of what was funny. His jokes were, for the most part, originals; things that were funny to kids as well as adults, but never at someone else's expense.

On the other hand, if that same farmer first tills the soil and plants the seed, then God performs the real miracle--the germination and the growing of the seed: "God truly helps those that help themselves." 

He would tell the story of the devout believers, who, during a great drought, would gather daily at the local country church, and pray for rain. Finally, the rains came, and the people were ecstatic. And there was the church--Empty--no one had thought to return to give thanks.
 

The Music School
Back in the twenties, John had a band that used to tour the southern United States--he even played guitar with Jimmy Rodgers in the late twenties. Later he established a music school in Washington, DC. He hired lots of music teachers, and had a thriving business. He tells the story of when he first moved into his new offices. It seems that the school, which was on the second floor, was over a bank, and John deduced that his private office--and more precisely his desk and chair were directly over the bank's vault. So he had the sign on the front door changed to read: "Westbrook Music School, Ass sets over a Million Dollars." 

Up until the depression, John was prospering in his music school. He had over a dozen instructors working for him and had accumulated a tidy sum. Business dropped off as the depression got worse. Instead of letting his people go, he paid their salaries until all his savings were gone.  It would have never occurred to him to do otherwise. 
 

Then there was the time when he was dating a young lady and was getting ready to light up: he asked her, "...do you mind if I smoke?" To which she replied, "Frankly John, I don't care if you Burn!" 
 

Duke and Snoopy
Westbrook was loved by both my dogs, Duke and Snoopy, and he loved them. John liked to tell of all the times that he would get off the bus at the corner of Jefferson and Lee streets, where he would meet up with Duke and they would head off for the woods near Almegro and A & D cliff or the Pumpkin creek woods. And at the end of the day, how they would part company at the same corner: John going his way and Duke going his--"Not a word spoken." 

Westbrook at 100 Yards
When I was about 10 years old, Bobby Plott and I rode our bikes to the Schoolfield woods. We had our nets and killing bottles with us and were looking for Catocalas (moths that hide on trees). After about an hour of pushing our bicycles through the woods, I stopped dead in my tracks, sniffed the air, and said," I smell Westbrook," to which a voice replied: "Right you are." There standing about 75 yards down the path was John, net in one hand, knapsack in the other, a big Blue Ribbon cigar clinched in his teeth, and a big grin on his face. John had a certain odor, unlike anybody else: a combination of cigar, cyanide from the killing bottles and a musty smell--tannin or leafy smell from the woods.

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Look down that lonesome Row
Arrow head hunting was a great example of how you cannot see an object (arrow head or spear point) if your mind's eye isn't use to seeing it... Many a newcomer would walk right over a perfect arrowhead or spear point and never see it. John would always walk where the novice had walked and find as much as if it were a virgin row. He would make a point of showing the newcomer the find, in a way that didn't hurt their feelings. In fact, it made them a more vigilant collector. After some experience you could spot an artifact with only the minutest part showing above the dirt. 

Belly Wash 
We lived on junk food and "belly wash." We rarely took any food or drink with us, we would stop at every country store we could find and stock up on every weird sweet goodie we could find. My specialty was finding exotic drinks: I discovered the original mountain dew in the Roanoke valley, it was in a light green bottle shaped like a little wine bottle - it was great tasting!

--He was into recycling very early on, he always talked about starting a business recycling toilet paper.

--Or if you answered his question on some subject or other correctly: "You have just won a chocolate covered wristwatch."

--John would tell the story of how his grandfather use to make home brew back during prohibition. The relatives thought it was so good that they were constantly nagging him to get a patent on the formula, to send it to the government and have it analyzed. So he sent a sample to the Department of Agriculture. After about three months he received an official looking letter from the U.S.D.A. He opened it and read it to his excited family: " Dear sir, we are sorry to inform you that your mule has diabetes."

--He would tell how his father had gone hunting and had killed a Moose, an Elk, and wounded a Mason." 

--He might ask someone "Just how much would you charge to haunt a house?"

--He might play some piece of music no one had ever heard before, and title it: "When Lightning Struck the Outhouse--second movement."

--Referring to his 39 ford station wagon, "The Crate," and driving up mountain sides so often, he claimed he was going to write a book: "Round the World in Second Gear." 

--If somebody passed us on the road in a hurry and somewhat recklessly, he would say "Hurry bud, you gotta get home before your beer gets warm."

Back in 1953 we were out in the middle of hurricane Hazel, when a severe hail storm hit us denting the Crate and putting holes in its cloth covered wooden slat roof, resulting in many a wet ride after that. When it would rain Westbrook use to say it was dryer outside of the car. 

Bill Hathaway, Johnny, Durwood, Billy Norman, Bobby Plott, myself and several more--who's names escape me--went on an overnight trip to the Smoky Mountains of North Carolina. 

We all piled into Bill's brand new Suburban; going from quarry to quarry and an occasional gem shop looking for mineral specimens for Bill's Nature Specimens Unlimited enterprise. We ended up in Little Switzerland, North Carolina--just off the Sky Line Drive. 

It was the height of the tourest season, and we were mingling with some pretty well-to-do folks, some of whom were in evening cloths and headed for a jewelry auction. We did feel a little out of place...

After eating supper we all went to the local Hotel where we occupied several rooms that Bill had reserved for us. 

Here we were: young kids, away from home, in a hotel room "unsupervised"--you get the idea. 

The most vivid memory of that trip: one group of kids--Billy Norman, Bobby Plott, myself and one or two others were negotiating the extra bunk beds with little room to move around; when there came a knock on the door. I climbed over several beds and people, and opened the door--expecting the manager with eviction orders. 

There stood Johnny. He was waring only his flowered boxer shorts, a sleeveless undershirt, his white legs--briefly exposed but for the garters holding up his dark socks, his hiking brogans, a stump of a cigar in his mouth, and on his head he was holding a large painted wooden fruit bowl--upside down like a coolie hat--asking some silly question. 

Our reaction was enormous and uncontrolled!!

Up until that point in my life I don't think I had ever experienced anything as Funny! Ever!

It broke the tension, to say the least; and with out saying so--we felt less out of place. We kind-a owned the place from there on out.

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During the war when sugar was rationed and candy was very scarce, Johnny was somehow able to get his hands on candy and bubble gum and would distribute it among the kids at the various schools. Apparently he had talked the local candy distributor, K.L. Baruddy, into donating the goodies to the kids of Danville.

Five or six years ago--with no thought to Political Correctness--I sat down and started putting down my recollections of John and the Crud Crew. I thought that I would not remember enough to make the effort worthwhile; but to my amazement, no sooner did I get one thought down, three others would come "flooding in," out running my ability to get it all down. To that point: I never finished fleshing-out all of the stories who's titles appear at the end.

About a year ago I discovered the perfect home for my recollections of John--the WWW. I had it in the back of my mind that this would be ideal for a Collection of Remembrances of Johnny.

Recently a good friend--Mike King of Apex, NC--died at an early age. At the wake, I promised his father that I would write to him about my recollections of his son. I wanted his parents to view their son through the eyes of his contemporaries. I wanted them to know how well respected and loved their son was by his friends and co-workers. 

As I started writing, I realized since it had been several years since I had seen Mike, that I was at a disadvantage, and needed help. So I created a Web Page and solicited contributions in the form of stories and photographs from all of his friends. --Johnny would have really liked this guy!
 

Anyway, all of this is by way of saying: I need Your help with Johnny's Web Page. If anyone has stories (long or short), photos, articles--anything they want to contribute to Johnny's Page, please send them: e-mail: glen@williamson-labs.com;  U.S. Mail: Glen A. Williamson 372 Norwood Drive Danville, VA 24540 NOTE: All contributions will be Returned!

Trivia Question of the day: What is 2290-J ?

In the area around Milton, NC, there were many great locations for collecting artifacts. Most were tobacco fields which afforded the best collecting; ones that had been freshly plowed and recently rained on. --The plow would inevitably "turn-up" hidden artifacts while the rain would wash off the top layer of dirt exposing the latest "treasures." 

At one such field we were drawn there by the beautiful dark blue Amethyst quartz crystals. Some times we would find good specimens of the crystals, but many promising specimens would have a flaw--a gouge or badly abraded spot. Though collected by many of us as mineral specimens, Johnny believed these were tools--pure and simple; that the Indians only saw "our pretty blue crystals" as highly prized tough material for making their badly needed TOOLS. 

To "fulfill a life long dream," John set about writing a Book on the Guitar. Over a span of three years, he spent all his spare time--and more-- writing this treatise. 

In the end, a publisher thought it good enough to publish if John would "pare it down" to a single volume. At the time it would have required 3 volumes. To my knowledge, John never finished the revised single volume. It's my guess, that his dream had been fulfilled, and he was less interested in its final publication. I don't think he saw it as a revenue source. I know that's not why he wrote it! 

The value in this particular work--according to Johnny: it was a catalog of--as well as, a method for discovering --"Guitar Cords." Apparently, up until that time, there were a limited number of known ways of making popular chords-- fingering frets, strumming, etc. The larger the repertoire of ways of making certain chords a musician has, the better their performance. That is, it is how smoothly and how fast a Guitarist can TRANSITION from one chord to the next that affects the quality of their performance. In fact, Johnny pointed out that one of the reasons for the success of many renown Guitarists was their secret collection of ways of making Chords, and that it is was not unusual for them to take their chords to their graves.