NICK ASHFORD & THE HAGER TWINS

Never met a stranger

Hair loss being what it is, if it’s summer and I’m traveling, I always take along a baseball cap.

Off to L.A., I thought of taking my “Milwaukee Road” with the tilted logo that I’d recently acquired, but I’d worn that on a July 4th outing to Cape Cod and wanted something different.

But only two others were within easy reach. One was a great Cleveland International Records cap with an accordion on it, a gift of my late pal Steve Popovich, the company’s founder/president, who more than anyone made a proud polka person out of me. But I’d worn a Cleveland International t-shirt, also with an accordion on it, to The Cape, and was taking a “Polka Hall of Fame” t-shirt to L.A.

The other was a goofy yellow number with a black brim and a black line drawing of two inane faces, little more than circles, with tiny squiggles for eyes and nose, a wide U-shaped grin and a red embroidered lolling tongue. Underneath, in Hee Haw like lettering, it said, “The Hager Twins,” and it really was the perfect likeness.

I’d met the Hagers many Fan Fairs ago, when the huge country music fan-appreciation event now staged downtown was held at Nashville’s dusty Fairgrounds. They had an exhibition booth, and you’d walk by and they’d be mugging for fan photos, heads tilted and tongues dangling in the manner of the cartoon on the cap.

They gave me one then. I was such a huge fan from the Hee Haw days, and whenever I was in town they’d meet me for coffee at Bongo Java, always so appreciative that I remembered them. Even then, they were always on, constantly cutting up.

“They were wonderful guys, but from a P.R. standpoint it was like herding a pair of two-year-olds when they were at an event,” their publicist Lisa Wysocky told me after Jon Hager died on Jan. 9, 2009, less than a year after brother Jim died on May 1, 2008. “LOL! Neither of them had ever met a stranger so they were all over the room. They also had such huge hearts and gave a lot of their time to help others.”

The Hagers never met a stranger. Neither had Nick Ashford. Thought of Nick on the plane to L.A., because exactly two years ago I was on the plane back from L.A. when he died.

Nick Ashford was so many things that anyone who was a friend or fan will never forget. Tears streamed down my cheeks as I read first Asia than Nicole Ashford’s loving Facebook tributes to their most loving and beloved father.

I’ve written elsewhere extensively about Nick. You all know his songwriting, and I can tell you it was all in character for a man who wrote so deeply about love, real love, and embodied that and all else that is real and good in people.

Nick Ashford would have loved the Hagers. I don’t know that he was a Hee Haw fan, but he would have appreciated the musical talent and loved the likes of Minnie Pearl, for sure, and Grandpa Jones.

And the Hagers. Huge hearts and helping others.

I picked the right hat.

Jim Bessman