Don Fowles

Ventriloquist Don Fowles with his dummy Byron John at Toro Park in approximately 1970

The USS Midway aircraft carrier is where a young Don Fowles spent four years of his life in the Navy during the mid-1960s. Don worked as an aircraft mechanic, and later as a barber inside this little barbershop located on the lower deck of the Midway, where he would often give a hundred or more haircuts each day. The Midway is permanently docked at the Navy Pier in San Diego on public display. They have done an excellent job restoring and showcasing this important piece of Naval history!

Happy Birthday, Don! Check out this awesome logo created by local graphic artist Jason Anselmo Martinez.

We appreciate Jason sharing his memories of Don cutting his hair as a child and into adulthood. Don would do impressions of Rod Serling from The Twilight Zone for Jason that would always make him laugh. Don even gave him a Twilight Zone comic book that he still owns to this day!

Jason had hoped Don could display this logo in his barber shop window, but unfortunately, Don passed before that could happen. Don would have been 81 today.

We miss Don immensely and think of him often, but the memories of the good times and laughter he brought wherever he went continue to live on in the hearts and minds of so many people in Salinas and beyond.