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Ernest Jackson is like a human slot machine. Shake his hand and stories fall out.
For a few days, I knew Jackson only as a name on a yellow Post-it note taped to my computer. It read: “Ernest Jackson. Army Reserve building grave site. Willow and 23rd streets.”
Eventually, we talked and, afterward, I felt like I knew him better than some of my aunts, uncles and cousins. Storytelling is a gift, a dying art really, and Jackson, 76, is a master raconteur.
Every story he tells is followed by an apology. “I hope I’m not boring you,” he’ll say as a segue to his next vignette. Or, “One more thing, and then I’ll shut up.”
When he dropped by for an interview one day this week, Jackson launched into the story about a “graveyard” near the intersection of Willow and 23rd streets in the Oak Grove neighborhood.