Friendship, food, and music.
A doughnut shop in Bixby has it all -- it's where the tunes are as sweet as the treats.
2 Works for You Anchor Scott Thompson takes us there in this weeks On the Road.
Luther Metcalf picked up a guitar when he was 10-years-old.
He's never put it down.
Every-other Friday morning, here in the back of the Daylight Donut store, Metcalf holds court.
With a rotating cast of comers and goers.
Joe's a retired dentist.
Tom's the retired principal of Bixby High School.
Bobby's a former Nashville studio guitarist who drives 45 minutes from Locust Grove to sit in.
R.D. showed up to sing and never left.
And James and Luther go back 35 years.
"I've hung around that man so long that I've just about turned into a senior citizen like him, you know," James said.
Senior citizens just a label, after all.
Luther's 95 years old.
But if you watch him play, you'll see his fingers fly.
It must be the music that keeps him so young.
He even carried a guitar with him when he went ashore at Normandy Beach, 10 days after D-Day.
"And I carried it most all the way through the war, but I lost it during the Battle of the Bulge," Metcalf said. "I had it in a barracks bag and I played that thing and a guy with me playing the mandolin and every time we had a break we'd play a little music, you know."
Luther's been playing a little music since he was 10.
And we'd go to these old country dances and they'd move all the furniture out of the living room and they'd dance in there.
It's kind of the same thing they still do here at the donut store.
The strummers and pickers fill the back of the place.
Up front, Sue keeps the donuts coming, when she's not clapping along to the music.
And every so often, they can talk her into singing "Amazing Grace" in Korean.
"It just gives you peace of mind, and it's just fun and it's just a little bit of maintaining hometown heritage," Sue said.
No one really remembers when these jam sessions began.
R.D. just showed up with a song in his heart, and stayed.
His son put together a songbook, with big print, if the words escape him.
And his favorite song first in the pile.
They take requests. Just don't ask for them out of order.
Luther and his friends playing music, surrounded by pictures of kids.
Neighbors up front.
And more kids.
And donuts.
And Sue.
But in a world in which we always seem to be shouting over one another, and "up" is suddenly "down" and things that seemed certain suddenly aren't, it's a pretty good story to tell.
At a donut shop in Bixby.
Every other Friday.
Luther and the Donut Shop Boys played this morning.
They'll show up again at the Daylight Donuts store at 151st and Memorial on August 24th.
They get started at 7 a.m.
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