The first time I tried to find my father’s best friend, I was 20 years old. That was around Christmas in 1996, just a few days after Dad bought our first computer. At the time, it was a top-notch system and cost $3,000 at the now-defunct Circuit City.
That was at the beginning of the Internet age. Though the Web had been around for a while, most people didn’t have a computer with the Internet in their homes, especially in Burlingame, Kansas. Of course, my brother and I were excited to have the latest in “toys.” That computer came with a ton of software, something you wouldn’t see now. We had the complete Microsoft Office suite, plus several video games, including Sim City.
I used the computer/Internet for class, yes, but I spent a considerable amount of time surfing the Web. My dad had no knowledge of computers and typed about as slow as possible, but I learned shortly after we brought the computer home that he had lofty expectations.
“I want you to see if you can find (dozens of designs) that I can use to make plates for my business,” he said. “And after you do that, I want you to see if you can find Danny.”
I found a number of designs he could use for plates quickly, but locating James Daniel Hollingshead, or Danny as he was known, was difficult. Keep in mind that the Internet was not endless in 1996, like it is today. You couldn’t find everything online. To top it off, we were all using dialup to connect in those days, and it was often painfully slow.
I spent several days trying to track Danny down. The only information I found was the phone number of a James D. Hollingshead in South Lake Tahoe, California. We tried calling the number a few times, but no one answered and there was no answering machine. Years later, as my father was in the final stages of cancer, he said that he had sent a few letters to an address I found on the Internet when the old man lived in Cottonwood Falls, Kansas (2001-2005).
Finding Danny was important to my father. They were friends at a time when Dad didn’t have many and tried to avoid everybody in prison. They met in Hutchinson, Kansas, when the old man was convicted on several charges of burglary, larceny and robbery. Danny, who arrived in the institution before Dad, was there for burglary and larceny.
“I met Danny because we both worked in the kitchen,” Dad said. “I liked him right away. He was smart, but he was also a big bullshitter, told a lot of stories. He was my boy. We were best friends.”
Dad and Danny were serving time in the mid-1960s, a far different era in the prison system than now. As I wrote before about his experience, Dad said standing up for yourself was enough. The old man had been in and out of boys homes, jails and prisons for several years by then and had established a reputation. In other words, fellow inmates left him alone. That was not the case for Danny, at least at first.
“Man, they bullied Danny. They just pushed him around, and he never did anything about it,” Dad said. “That was my best friend, and I was tired of it. One time, when a guy was messing with him, I told him, ‘Either you take care of this, or I’m going to. If you don’t fight this guy, I’m going to.’ It’s time for you to get your ass out there and stand up for yourself.’”
Danny challenged the guy to a fight and got his ass kicked. But he got enough punches in that he wasn’t bothered the rest of his time in prison.
“Danny got out before I did, and I didn’t know where he was when I got out after that,” Dad said. “We lost touch at that point.”
Based on the prison records the Kansas Department of Corrections was kind enough to send me earlier this year, Danny was paroled and went to Topeka. A year later, in September 1969, Dad was paroled and moved to California, where his parents lived.
“I moved to Borrego Springs and helped my parents buy a house out there,” he said. “I remember our house was off this roundabout, it was one of the first one of those they had in the United States. I was outside, and this car kept driving by and going around this roundabout. Finally, the car pulled up in front of our house, and all be damned if it wasn’t Danny.”
Dad and Danny continued to hang out, often driving to and partying in Mexico, including the trip I wrote about during last year’s Twelve Days of Christmas entry on Danny. Unfortunately, they had a falling out a few years later, in about 1971, and Dad didn’t hear from Danny for the remaining 48 years of his life. Despite that, he thought enough of his friend to name my brother after him.
“He was a just a good dude, a good friend,” Dad said. “I tried to find him several times. It just never worked out.”
In researching my father’s past, I did find information about the woman he was engaged to before he went to prison the last time and before he met and married my mother. Deb was born in Topeka and has her own family now. She lives in Louisiana, though I have not been able to talk to her, yet.
As for Danny, I’ve managed to find a few details about his time in the Hutchinson Correctional Facility, along with a couple of newspaper clips. It appears he was married to and later divorced a women named Doris Helen Hollingshead in Santa Cruz, California, in the 1970s. The old man said he had a young son, Sean, but I have not been able to locate him. He’d be about 50 now.
There are several people named James Daniel Hollingshead, at least more than you’d think. I’ve scoured the Internet, poured through pages on Facebook and made dozens of phone calls. Finding Danny remains a needle in the haystack. If you know of or anything about Danny, who was born in 1942 and would be 78 years old today, please contact me at erniewebbiii@hotmail.com or comment on this blog. I’d like to tell him, or his family, how much he meant to my old man.