Excerpt: "Don't Worry, It'll Grow Back

                                   

 

 

          

n our community, I’m known as “Bradenton’s Favorite Barber.”  And, by “in our community” I mean: “in my mind.”  I like to think of myself as a master barber with myriad clients who wait hours for me to cut their hair.  In truth, I am the most fortunate man I know. 

In my humble estimation, I have about 400 regular clients who’ve been duped into thinking I know what I’m doing with clippers and shears, who enjoy my never-ending stories and “in your face” demeanor, and who pay me every couple of weeks for the enjoyment of fifteen minutes of cigar breath and my pithy analysis of The State of The World.   

But I am definitely comfortable here.  All my life I just knew there was a place for me. The juxtaposition of my boisterous personality and a healthy respect for tradition has found a home in the barbershop.

There was a time in American history when the local barbershop was something more than a place to get a trim and a close shave.  Gentlemen—from the mayor to the tobacco farmer—drifted leisurely in and out of the shop on an almost-daily basis, greeting one another and staying in touch.  Like the British publick houses (the “pubs”), the American barbershop—in communities like Hollowell, Maine and Lenoir, North Carolina and Dyersville, Iowa—was the best place to get up to speed on the local goings-on. 

Hard-working men living uncomplicated lives possessed the uncanny ability to chisel complex issues down to their least common denominator.  American life was lived upon a foundation of solid truths, which were never questioned.  And although the barbershop was a marketplace of ideas and critical analysis, such engagement was entered into by all participants under an unspoken agreement to do so within the framework of a common value system.  This is not to say that discomforting or even far-fetched topics were not broached—reasoned progress demanded it.  But imagination was always tempered by primeval understandings that had been silently passed from generation to generation.

These storefront shops were rich with heart-of-pine flooring, mahogany wainscoting and cabinetry, decorative pendant lighting, and large, well-polished mirrors.  Beneath each mirror was a smooth porcelain pedestal sink before a solidly-built barber chair with polished chrome and deep forest-green or burgundy leather.  Patrons were met with the aroma of oak smoldering in a pot-belly stove, mixed with masculine fragrances like Clubman aftershave, Wildroot hair cream and ten-cent cigars.  An array of fedoras and Stetsons adorned the brass coat rack.

In one corner, a couple of guys played checkers while a businessman in a three-piece suit waited his turn with the morning paper.  In one reclined barber chair, a customer swathed in a red-striped haircloth had his face wrapped in a steaming white linen towel while at another, a barber dressed in white coat and bow tie blended the perfect taper, shears over comb. 

The radio played Glenn Miller and Tommy Dorsey and, later in the afternoon, the Cubs game live from Wrigley Field.  Men forecast the weather and spoke of distant places with funny names like Okinawa and Ardennes, but also of Main Street and the heretically-proposed traffic signal—and the special tax assessment to pay for it.  Livestock and real estate were transferred with a handshake.  Newborn babies were communally celebrated and old friends were laid to rest with respect.

Like water through the wheel at the gristmill, a community’s life passed through the barbershop.