I will soon be 52 years old. I have practiced law for over 27 years and I have experienced many amazing moments and met many amazing people. On Saturday, May 22^nd, 2010 my family and I had the awesome opportunity of sitting down and visiting with one of the most amazing and wisest men I have ever met. 

On Friday, May 21^st, 2010 I picked up the phone and called Winfrey Barber Shop in Nashville, Tennessee. I told the gentleman who answered the phone that I wanted to know if I would need to make an appointment to bring my sons into the shop to get a haircut from Mr. Winfrey. The gentleman said no. I then asked if Mr. Winfrey would be in on Saturday. He said sure! I asked are you certain? He said, “Yes.” I am Mr. Winfrey.” I nearly passed out. There I was talking on the phone with the father of the wealthiest woman in the world. Oprah Winfrey is worth 2.7 billion dollars. By everyone’s standards she is the richest and most powerful woman in the world. I told Mr. Winfrey that we would meet him at his shop by noon on Saturday, May 22^nd, 2010. 

We arrived at Mr. Winfrey’s shop at exactly 11:30 am. He was sitting on the front porch of his Barber Shop eating grapes waiting for us. We got out of the car and went directly to Mr. Vernon Winfrey, father of the great Oprah Winfrey. I introduced myself and my wife, Debra, and sons Greg Jr. and Christopher to Mr. Winfrey. Alexis, my 16 year old daughter could not make it because she had to work at her part-time job. She did not want to take off because she said they needed her on Saturday. I offered to pay her what she would make that day, but she wanted to honor her obligation as I had taught her to do. 

When we entered the Barber Shop Mr. Winfrey asked us to step into the sitting area of his shop where we spent over an hour chatting like old friends. It was one of the most amazing moments of all of our lives. After much conversation and laughter the boys and I got beautiful haircuts. Debra got her eyebrows plucked by Mr. Winfrey’s partner of 25 years Mr. Sam. By the time we were finished three hours had passed by. They were three hours well spent. Mr. Winfrey told us that he felt as though he had made new friends. It was truly one of the highlights of my life. 

We found Mr. Vernon Winfrey to be a very humble man. He said that he has had people tell him “if they could just meet my daughter Oprah, they would be ready to die.” He laughed and said, “I don’t know anybody that I would meet and then be ready to die after meeting them. Mr. Winfrey taught my kids some valuable lessons about humility during those three hours. He told them that he always told Oprah, “Don’t let anyone be nicer to you than you are to them.” I trembled when he said that because that has also been my personal philosophy which I have always shared with my kids. We promised to stay in touch.

I think this speech given by Mr. Winfrey’s daughter, Oprah at the 54^th Emmy Awards Ceremony when she received the first Bob Hope Humanitarian Award on September 22, 2002, best describes my new friend:   

"Thank you everybody. Thank you Tom, and Bob and Dolores, who are home watching I hope, thank you so much, and to everyone who voted for me.

There really is nothing more important to me than striving to be a good human being. So, to be here tonight and be acknowledged as the first to receive this honor is beyond expression in words for me. 'I am a human being; nothing human is alien to me.' Terence said that in 154 B.C. and when I first read it many years ago, I had no idea of the depth of that meaning.

I grew up in Nashville with a father who owned a barbershop, Winfrey's Barber Shop, he still does, and I can't get him to retire. And every holiday, every holiday, all of the transients and the guys who I thought were just losers who hung out at the shop, and were always bumming haircuts from my father and borrowing money from my dad, all those guys always ended up at our dinner table. They were a cast of real characters—it was Fox and Shorty and Bootsy and Slim. And I would say, 'Bootsy, could you pass the peas please?' And I would often say to my father afterwards, 'Dad, why can't we just have regular people at our Christmas dinner?'—because I was looking for the Currier & Ives version. And my father said to me, 'They are regular people. They're just like you. They want the same thing you want.' And I would say, 'What?' And he'd say, 'To be fed.' And at the time, I just thought he was talking about dinner. But I have since learned how profound he really was, because we all are just regular people seeking the same thing. The guy on the street, the woman in the classroom, the Israeli, the Afghani, the Zuni, the Apache, the Irish, the Protestant, the Catholic, the gay, the straight, you, me—we all just want to know that we matter. We want validation. We want the same things. We want safety and we want to live a long life. We want to find somebody to love. Stedman, thank you. We want to find somebody to laugh with and have the power and the place to cry with when necessary.

The greatest pain in life is to be invisible. What I've learned is that we all just want to be heard. And I thank all the people who continue to let me hear your stories, and by sharing your stories, you let other people see themselves and for a moment, glimpse the power to change and the power to triumph.

Maya Angelou said, 'When you learn, teach. When you get, give.' I want you to know that this award to me means that I will continue to strive to give back to the world what it has given to me, so that I might even be more worthy of tonight's honor.

Thank you."

 In the words of my dad, “You must honor the chair whether it is sitting, walking or lying down.”

Greg Griffin is a free lance writer. You can read his previous articles by visiting his web page at www.greggriffin.com or write to him at P.O. Box 250194 Montgomery, Alabama 36125-0194.