MOBILE, Ala. (AP) – The weather outside was frightful, but inside a Mobile Whataburger on a recent Friday, the music was delightful – thanks to Aulden Sumrall, who, sitting in a back corner of the restaurant, would occasionally pick up his harmonica and play Christmas music for the customers who were eating lunch there.
On the table in front of him sat his harmonica case, a cup of water and a handwritten playlist that included 13 songs.
Now 90 years old, Sumrall has been playing harmonica since his stepmother taught him how when he was only 7. His own mother died the day he was born, April 28, 1929, he says. When his father remarried, he gained a stepsister and a stepbrother and, eventually, a half-sister and a half-brother. After serving in the U.S. Air Force, he worked as a tree surgeon for a few years and then spent his career with Ashland Oil, retiring in 1992.
He and Millie, his wife of 63 years, live just a couple of miles away from the Whataburger, which until recently was owned by his son and daughter-in-law, Kenny and Denise Sumrall, who have now retired. But the managers enjoy having him come in and play, not only at Christmastime but on other holidays as well.
“It has given him something to look forward to,” says his daughter-in-law.