ash godbold
I’m a lucky man. I know that and am grateful for it every morning I wake up and find my lovely wife Kate next to me, then I get up and see my two beautiful daughters, Emily and Ruthie, and know that I’ve been blessed beyond my wildest hopes and dreams. My three girls. I love them all so very much.
I had nothing when I rolled into Hawker’s Drift, nothing save my grandfather’s chair and mirrors in the back of a wagon along with a bag of scissors and razors. Weren’t expecting much to be honest, I’d been moving from town to town, trying to find a place that might give a young man a chance in life to make something of himself.
You would have thought there’d always be men in need of a shave and a haircut, however much rack and ruin the world falls into, but nope. In most towns I’d been peered at suspiciously and told there was no room for strangers, even the ones with half their Main Street boarded up and deserted. In a couple of places, the message had been re-enforced by stern-faced men cradling guns.
Hawker’s Drift had been different; thriving, alive and welcoming. The Mayor came down and saw me on my first day in town. Told me how much Hawker's Drift needed a good barber, even found a shop for me and paid up the rent for the first three months to get me started.
I thought I’d stumbled onto paradise. When I met Kate, I was damn well sure I had. The Mayor introduced us at a dance, I didn’t think she’d be anything other than polite and then make her excuses.
I ain’t much of a catch, you see. A bit too tall, a bit too, awkward, a bit too bumbling, not much of a looker, even less of a talker. I can give a good shave and a neat haircut. Reckoned neither of those things were gonna help me win Kate and as I didn’t have nothing else in the bank, I was expecting a might short conversation.
But do you know what? We just hit it off. Like we’d known each other for years. Or been waiting to know each other, maybe.
A beautiful wife, two gorgeous daughters and a good business. What man could want for more? Especially in days like these when so many people go without and children are so hard to come by.
I really don’t know what I did to get so damned lucky…