It Was Like This

In other words, if he'd come along later, he wouldn't have been Bud Johnson.
Bud says he recently got a letter from one of those community sections of the Chronicle. He thinks someone must have noticed his work in Citizens' News, and, obviously not knowing who Bud Johnson is (genius does indeed go unrecognized in its time), sent along a form he could fill out if he wanted to do some stringing for the section. Bud says he sent it back with this no-thanks: "I don't work for white people."

I have no idea if it really was like that, but I do know that he laughed when he said he didn't work for white people. For Bud Johnson, the joy has always been in telling it.