I don’t know, but maybe I’m just not a barbershop kinda guy.
When I was a kid, men seemed to have magically discovered they had hair on their heads that needed attending to. Maybe they recognized this before, but just hadn’t acted on it in quite the same fashion, or in the same numbers. Mind you, I haven’t researched this topic, I’m just throwing a few thoughts out there. (Hopefully none of my follicles are attached to any of those thoughts. Nobody wants to be thoughtful and hairless.)
As I recall, there was this new explosion of hair-related commercials blasting out the latest in hair-related products for men. Ads had men that had gone wavy or curly with perms. Even in my own home, the thin aromatic fingers of the Auquanet fog found their way under the bathroom door as Dad layered on mist after mist of the door-accumulating stuff. [He did so, and still does by the way, with the precision of the finest of Graffiti artist and percussion musician - combined. His application of this pink-can-of-lung-clogger was done with style, accuracy…and rhythm. If I could type it justly, it would look something like this: Pssshhh, Pssshhh Pssshhh Pssshhh, Psssssssssssssssssssshhhhhhhhhhhhhh.]
Men could color out the gray, color in MORE gray, or as Fred G. Sandford preferred, have it “fried, dyed and laid to the side”. Back then, I just liked my hair just long enough so that I could hide within it. I was quiet and shy and some of the neighborhood kids swore I was retarded because I “never” spoke to them. (I prefer to think I was just choosey.)
There was a “beauty parlor” on the floor above Mom and Dad’s business. They’d just opened up, and I can still see in my mind where several of the gold flakes that had been blown on to the still-wet plastered ceiling, hadn’t quite managed to adhere themselves. In fact, several months would go by where a few of those gold flakes seemed to think the seat of my pants was a suitable home after having “just a trim”. Mom hurried to make fast friends with those ladies and while I cannot recall the name of the owner, I can still see her face, hear her voice and remember wondering why she insisted riding up over the arm of the chair when my hand was still resting there. (They do call it an “arm rest” do they not?)
After that business came and moved, we followed them to their new location. At the new location they had this odd thing on the back wall that looked like someone had added a closet, with a curtain for a door, but had done so after the walls were in place. We could see through the gap in the opening and got a view of what looked like perpendicularly placed florescent bulbs. We were informed this was the latest rage and it was called a “tanning booth”. As I pictured young ladies wrapped in aluminum foil getting their tan on, all I knew was, I wasn’t getting in that thing because I got my tans for free. (But yes, I’ll gladly take another Coke in a glass bottle. Oh, the days when I was very young and got my hair cut at that little house on Breckenridge Street and the ladies would squeeze on me and give me tiny glass bottles of RC Cola.)(Oh! After that one, we started going to an actual barbershop that gave out orange sherbet Push-ups after the hair went flying to the floor.)
Then, my folks moved their business. It still sits there today, in its third location, right next to a salon. I only went the neighboring salon a couple of times. I was never pleased with how my hair turned out when I went there. Mom and Dad still insist on going. “It’s just so handy.”, they defend.
Once I got my driver’s license, I made a couple of stops at the one with the tanning booth and really, just felt too weird I guess. I wasn’t a kid anymore, so why the hell am I going to a GIRL’S hair joint?! And yet, I couldn’t bring myself to go back to the Push-ups barber either. It was just too, I don’t know, old and the place felt dirty and the same old chairs were in there. Hell, it was the same old barbers.
So I sat out to find a new hair joint. The lucky location that ended up receiving my hair cuttin’ bidness would be inside JCPenney’s in the local mall. It was perfect. I could park just outside the back door to the store’s main exit, because the salon was just inside to the left. I wouldn’t have to step foot in the retail section with my scraggly hair, and I could sneak out the door should they do a crappy job.
Michelle was her name. She was a few years older than I was, married, blonde and terribly cute. Michelle and I had a wonderful relationship, until she got pregnant by the other man; her so-called “husband”. She swore she’d come back. She didn’t. Reluctantly I stayed on as a customer of the salon and began to be the ever-faithful customer to…Michelle (a second Michelle). She was married, a brunette, and terribly cute. She and I were customer and cutter for a good couple of years. It was great. We knew each other’s stories and she knew just how to whack the hair and leave it long. And then, she got pregnant. I told her what happened with the other Michelle and she promised that would never happen.
It did.
By then, I was in my routine, and I’m a man of routine. So, I stuck around and found Heather. A-ha! A NEW face AND a new name. She was married, brunette, oh terribly cute …and she already had kids. TWO of them in fact. A few years went by and Heather and I talked and chatted like school-girls. She shared her candy and I left a pile of myself all over the floor. (No, not like that, but I wouldn’t complain.) We showed off photos of our kids, and eventually I brought my son in for a one-time haircut. (He soon preferred to have it shaved mostly off. I’m not sure if that was a coincidence or not.)
Then came the day I called for my appointment and Heather was gone. “What?! PLEASE don’t tell me she’s pregnant!”. I joked. In fact, she was getting a divorce.
I didn’t even bother to wonder why she never mentioned anything. I knew what it was like. It’s nothing to go ‘round banging your drum about.
It was time for me to find a new hair cut lady, again. This time, though, I wanted a new location too. Too much history, you know? But as I was exiting the actual JCPenney’s store one day, I saw a former co-worker in the salon…cutting hair. Hot damn! I got all excited. She was always nice and funny and I could still sneak out the door if my hair was uneven when she’d finished. It was done, sign me up!
And she did. For at least a couple of visits until she told me she was leaving. I’d already told her my Hair History and joked, “You’re not pregnant are you?!” She wasn’t, and she handed me a bidness card with the new location. I scouted the place before making an appointment. It was a stand-alone bidness. In fact, it was a damn spa. After about two visits and watching a worker remove this girl’s eyebrows with long strands of thread, and another girl having hers removed with wax, I was done. I had to find another location…again.
Just about that same time, I heard someone say, “Heather is back at Penney’s.” Hmmm.
And with that Heather I’d been together for a couple of years. As time went on, Heather came in with the news that…she was pregnant. And she wasn’t joking. I survived with a co-worker of hers until she returned and I made her promise that was her LAST child. She promised and while she continued to cut my hair, and moved to a new location. Sheesh this was getting old.
I went there for a year or so and felt uncomfortable most of the time. The place was much bigger than the last. More mirrors and I noticed an odd thing. The customers were younger and thinner. No, wait. That wasn’t it.
I was older and fatter.
Saturday I went to a barbershop. All men. Three barber chairs and three male barbers, and lack and white checkered flooring, all matching the orange Push-up barbershop from my childhood. This would be the second or third actual barbershop of my entire hair cutting history. Two long wooden benches that faced each other were there for the customers to read video game magazines and keep an eye on the widescreen flat panel. They didn’t even have a sports station tuned in. It was the news. The smells were different, the discussions different too. And for the first time in a long time, I didn’t have to tell the person doing my hair what I did, what I thought about Brad Pitt or anything else that would cause them to be distracted from the fact they have sharp scissors pointed at my ears.
Just a few words and a few snips n’ clips and I was on my way. I didn’t even get his name.
For some reason, I find comfort in that and I have to wonder where I’ve been and why. Everything happens for a reason they say.
I say, let the hair fall where it may.
