Look at the picture, taken in a dime-store photo booth in 1955. What do you see? A black-and-white snapshot of black and white buddies hanging out - in black-and-white, segregated times. They seem an odd pair. One wears a wide smile, a starched shirt and a bow tie. He glows with the naivete of Barney Fife. His friend, dressed casually, is smiling, too. But his is a weathered, worldly smile, a look born, perhaps, of the day. Both men, then Baltimore Colts rookies, would leave their mark on pro sports.
Bow Tie, aka Raymond Berry, helped lead the Colts to two world championships during a stellar career as a Hall of Fame receiver.
Teammate Leroy Vaughn left football after one season. His son, Maurice "Mo" Vaughn, became a big league slugger and the American League's Most Valuable Player in 1995.
And the photo? It lay tucked away in Berry's belongings, forgotten for more than a half-century before he discovered it last year.
Finding the picture led Berry to search for Vaughn, whom he hadn't seen in 50 years.
Back then, racism was still rampant in America. Had the picture been taken in the deep South - had a white man and a black man entered a coin-operated photo booth, shared the single stool and closed the curtain - there would have been hell to pay.
But it was during a road trip to Chicago or New York that two first-year players stepped into a Woolworth's, spent a quarter and forged their friendship on a wallet-sized keepsake.
Last year, when they reconnected, they spoke by phone, shared memories and vowed to reunite this summer. Soon after that conversation, a letter arrived at Vaughn's home in Midlothian, Va.
Inside was a copy of the vintage photo. Vaughn placed it on the coffee table in his living room. Berry's picture sits on the desk of his office in his house in Murfreesboro, Tenn.
Vaughn is now a retired high school principal; Berry is the spokesman for a national insurance company. Both are 75.
But in 1955, they were a couple of low-grade, 22-year-old rookies determined to stick with the Colts.
Each arrived in camp unnoticed. Berry, myopic and slow afoot, was a 20th-round draft pick out of Southern Methodist University. Vaughn, a native Baltimorean, was a free agent from Virginia Union, where he had starred at quarterback - a door then closed to almost all black players in the pros.
