Tom Heflin was a railroad conductor. His wife had a sister. That sister had two little boys. One day she took those boys on a train to Winslow, Arizona to spend a few days with them. Tom took those boys out into the desert to collect rocks. One of the little boys grew up to be a pediatrician. The other just kept pickin’ up rocks. I’ve never been able to explain what got into me that day… but it’s never left me. It has something to do with how the beauty of nature is made permanent, and becomes transferable, only in natural gemstones. Blood-red rubies. Piercing blue sapphires. Emeralds greener than the greenest grass. And diamonds… rocks that are perfectly colorless, clear and pure. Rocks! Call me crazy. Call me naïve. But I don’t think gemstones are here by accident. I think God put them here. And he made them beautiful, and he made them rare, and he made them hard to find, so that you and I might give them as symbolic gifts to those rare and hard-to-find people who are beautiful in our own lives. You know who I am. And that’s all I’ve got to say today.
(NOTE: Did you notice that the name of the company was never mentioned in this ad and the man speaking was never identified? This would normally be considered heresy in the practice of Marketing, but when Woody Justice was alive, his voice was instantly recognized in his community and the name of his company was a household word due to having been on virtually every radio station in his city 365 days a year for more than 20 years. This ad was magical because it didn’t sound like an ad. It was magical because of what was left out. – RHW)