what ever happened to pittsburg

through the years working at feed yards and ranches ive met a lot of interesting people. some ime still friends with and stay in contact with, some have passed on out of this world and some have achieved some noteariaty, like temple Grandin. but some I have lost track of. a brief encounter and then we moved on. one such was john shurman. in the early 70 s I
was working at the hughes and ganz feed lot in queen creek. one sunny fall day a yellow cab rolled into the parking lot at the office. now this feed yard was a good 30 miles from the nearest cab service. the passenger got out , retrieved a large suit case and payed the cab who promptly left in a cloud of dust. this young man stood for a moment then walked into the office. the next day this young man was at the ready to go to work. he wasn't a cowboy nor did he represent himself as such. he went to the processing crew. the nastiest, dirtiest, bloodiest job you can think of. with out complaint he stepped in, got dirty, got bloody and learned his role. in a few hours he was doing it like he had for years.  as time went  on we got to know this quiet young man. he worked hard, didn't complain and expected no more than he was due. after a couple of days he let it be known he was back from a second tour in viet nam. he was from pittsburg and he had been a shoe salesman . one day he said he was tired of looking up womens skirts, fitting shoes on women who insisted their feet were smaller than they were. he bought a plane ticket to phoenix because it was warmer than pittsburg. when he arrived in phoenix he had got a phone book, opened the yellow pages and closed his eyes , and stuck his finger on a number. hughes and ganz . he called, asked for work , was given a job and told to come on out. he used the last money he had to pay the cab. he was staying in a company trailer house with another bacholer. they became great friends, inseperable. john was dropped and everyone called him pittsburg. with in a month because of his work ethic he was taken off the processing crew and moved to the truck that doctored the sick cattle. it took him no time to aquire those skills and knowledge. one night a bunch of us were cutting and wrapping a beef to be shared  among the  cowboys and the doctor crew. the beer was flowing while we cut wrapped and were barbequing steaks while we worked. I noticed pittsburg was very good at wrapping the cuts of beef. I asked him where he had learned that method. he told me he was just wrapping shoes, meat was no different! soon after that night I left hughes and ganz. I never learned where john went or if he stayed in Arizona. but a better guy to work with I haven't seen. pittsburg, where ever you are I hope all is well.