"SHAVE AND A HAIRCUT . . . "

          "You've had a haircut," my friend said. "No, I had several of them cut", I answered.  He missed the lame joke.  Saw my barber (not stylist) today. (Well, actually he exceeds 'barber' skills. It's just that my 'style' is relatively easy to maintain.) While I marveled at the pile of grey hair on the floor, I did enjoy the warm shampooing afterwards.  (Lots of itchy hairs down my shirt collar always was a dismaying aftermath of a haircut.)

      According to Wikipedia, barbering has had several specialties over the centuries.  Once called Barber-surgeons, they offered services, including several 'medical specialties', in addition to trimming the tonsures.  The abandoned practice of blood-letting, once considered top of the line treatment for various maladies, lies at the history of the barber pole . . . Red for blood, white for bandages and blue for the veins.

     In the small towns of my youth, along with the traditional 'shave and a haircut, two  bits' (25 cents), of that ditty's fame, many shops offered hot showers and shoe shines. (One of my first 'public jobs' was shining shoes in Mr. Lewter's shop in the late 1940's. Fee ? 25 cents.) He did not assess me a space rental fee. I suppose that I was a kind of add-on bonus for his well-groomed customers, especially on Saturdays.  One of my younger brothers plied the same trade in our uncle's shop several years later.

     At that time, barber shops were essentially a male domain . . . except for the occasional mother who would bring in a son for his first trim.  Along with providing grooming service, they were community centers for information, misinformation, rumors and gossip.  Herb Shriner, a humorist of another generation, remarked that life was so slow in his small town that on Saturday nights, folks would gather at the barber shop 'to watch a couple of haircuts'. 

'Watching a few haircuts' at Kilroy's shop ca. 1970's

     Mr. Pickard, a barber with whom I was  acquainted in the 1950's, could on occasion be bombastic and profane.  Local lore had it that one day as each customer would leave his shop, 'Pick' would proceed to gossip mercilessly about that person. . . until one customer who had just had his haircut resumed a seat in the waiting area.  "What in the *&%$#()& are you still doing here?"  The customer allegedly replied that having heard what happened to the earlier patrons, he was not leaving to be talked about.

    My Uncle Lewis was a multi-talented man, capable of doing most anything that caught his interest.  During World War II, he
became a self-taught barber in his group.  After the War, he went to the state licensing office and was told that he would have to go through a formal training program.  He replied to the effect that he did not have time for that and somehow persuaded someone to let him demonstrate his skills, whereupon he was licensed.  His shop in the mill village was a long-time gathering place for many of the karakters there.

Uncle Lewis shaves his brother, Ken, in this 1949 photograph from the Durham, NC newspaper.

        My brother who shined shoes in Lewis's shop had become very fond of our uncle when just a wee thing.  So strong was the attachment that he insisted to our parents that he be allowed to wait until Lewis returned from military duty so he could give him his first haircut. Consequently, he had lots of long curls at his initial 'shearing'. 

     Probably my most memorable haircut occurred in July 1962 at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, when I entered the US Army. While I knew what 'style' would be coming, I was still  a bit surprised when the 'barbers' would occasionally ask a recruit how he wanted his hair cut, then proceed to skin his head.  Grown men were seen crying.  The only other 'style' that came close was that worn by a  neighboring elderly gentleman whose wife placed a bowl on the top of his head and cut around it, leaving him with a somewhat bizarre appearance.

Fort Jackson, South Carolina; Summer 1962

     The price of a trim has risen along with other necessities.  I do remember when  twenty-five cents was indeed the 'going rate'.  Now, it's more like twenty dollars where I live.  A once  prominent politician from our region caught lots of negative publicity as a result of his purportedly $400 haircut.  I wonder if that kind of thing was in  Garrison Keillor's mind when he wrote that "beauty isn't worth thinking about; what's important is your mind. You don't want a fifty-dollar haircut on a fifty-cent head."

     And, speaking of fifty-cent heads and thoughts that proceed therefrom: 'Kilroy' has been a barber in this area for many years.  Now, he apparently has encountered some sort of mindless bureaucracy.  I'll let my brother tell it ( from a column he regularly writes in  the local paper.): He noted that Cadle (his real name) had initially operated his shop in the building where Uncle Lewis once practiced his trade. Then, about 37  years ago, he built a new  structure just up the road. "His shop was open at night when many folks who work during the day find it convenient to have their ears lowered. . . . In the meantime, he continued to work at the original shop [about 8 miles away], never having the two open at the same hour.  Then came the word a few weeks ago that he was apparently engaging in some nefarious activity that would doom the world as we know it. The state Barber Board - or whatever the official title is - said 'You can't do that.'  As far as I've been able to learn the reason given was one barber couldn't operate two shops. My friend appealed, asking if he couldn't be 'grandfathered in'.  Nope. One barber can't operate two shops. So, thanks to a nameless shadow in a cubicle somewhere in Raleigh [the state capital], 37 years of time, money, sweat, good will and community service is in the tank."  

Talk about'bloodletting'.

   "Next".

        Satchel