07/21/2020
Missing our friends, we learned last week that our friend Mike Howard from Brazil passed away in May. He and his wife Susie found us early on after we started Burger weekends. We missed seeing them last season because of our shortened schedule. They were always a joy to visit with, joking with them about their celebrity status as they did over the top Fourth the July decorating at their home and had a segment on the local news about them. They also were great friends of Lynn's pharmacy in Brazil and could often be found at the lunch counter there. Mike had a big personality and will truly be missed. Last evening we got a call from a Mansfield neighbor, Verna White, that our good friend and porch character Jim Corbin passed away. We have known Jim from way back when we first bought the building in 1991. He and his wife Susie, had a cabin along the creek north of the mill. Jim was a history teacher at Turkey Run for many years and at the time of his retirement. Susie was a total character very much enjoyed their company. When Susie passed away Jim moved to Mansfield full time, he spent many hours on the front porch of the Mill w Clyde Krout that was the Miller at that time. He busied himself keeping the flower boxes in the front of the Mill looking nice as the first Board member of the Mansfield Garden Club, he was the only member and he was ok with that. When we started doing burgers, he became part of our first group of regular, regulars, we lost our first member of that group Don Phipps, whose family was pretty much founding fathers of Mansfield 2yrs ago. .That loss hurt our spirit, then Jim decided to move to his winter home in Florida permanently, we lost a big chunk of why we opened in the first place. Don was proclaimed Mayor of Mansfield, Jim was I believe Director of sanitation, Jim was great about providing signage for the store, directional signs for wherever the destination of the weekend seemed to be. He made us an informational sign about our WPA issue outhouse, the Lettering was so good that I asked him if he stenciled it, he said that after thirty years of writing on a chalk board he should be able to do that in his sleep!! Anyway, so much fun and total BS happened on that front porch and not sure how to replace that, our young guys JR Berry and TJ Nicoson are stepping up but we will always have a special place in our hearts for those old guys 💔
