Bye Bye Broom Man!

A long time ago, when I was a kid, I was in the drug store at Countryside Village in Omaha buying gum or something. The bell on the door rang and a thin black man in a suit and tie, a cap, a white cane, and a bushel of brooms over his shoulder entered the store. He asked "what store am I in?". The mean blonde lady who worked at the Village Drugstore YELLED at him" it's the drugstore at Countryside Village!!" I remember thinking, "uhhh he's blind not deaf". The man expressed his thanks and exited the store and walked his way up to the bus stop.


This was my introduction to the The Reverend Livingston Wills. The Broom Man. The Broom Man passed away this last week at the age of 91. Man, I thought he was 91 back in 1967 or so.
For the last 40 or so years since that first time, I would see him all over Omaha. West Omaha, South Omaha, North Omaha, Central Omaha, wherever the buses went, Reverend Wills would go to sell his brooms. I bought one from him once when I saw him at a grocery store a few years back. It got lost in a move or something and now I wish I had it. He always made me smile. Always dressed in his rumpled suit, and always plugging away in the heat and cold, he was one helluva man.


Only 150 people attended this legend's funeral. I thought about it, but I didn't. I wish I had now. The whole damned city should have been there. The Reverend Wills was somebody most cities would cherish. I would hope this one did. I hope a lot of people my age remember him for what he was. A fine, decent fellow. What more can you strive to be?