Town Crier: Two bits

Two bits

With a head of hair like mine, the less I spend on it, the better. Getting a $100 haircut like Clinton and Edwards get, would for me, be like buying a tuxedo for a goat. Any money spent beyond a bow tie is just money wasted. But if you’ve got luxurious, silky locks or hair to inspire Clarabell the Clown, unless you’re Lady Godiva or Fabio, you’ve got to go get your haircut sometime. As an American Male I went to one of the last bastions of manly fellowship with emphasis on the “fellow.” I took a visit to the Clip Joint, I toured the Tonsorial Parlor, I was welcomed as a walk-in at the Barber Shop.

Barber shops have been around for a long time. Barbering is probably the third-oldest profession. Alexander the Great had his men keep their beards shaved clean so the enemy soldiers couldn’t grab them by the whiskers when they fought close in. And soldiers from ancient times to now know that a buzz cut helps keep the lice away and keeps infections down in case of a cut to the head. I’ve read where soldiers in the Civil War and in the trenches of WWI used to sit around in the lulls between the battles and pick lice off each other like a pack of baboons. “Go to the barber soldier and get that head shaved and that’s an order!”

Because of their skill with scalpel-sharp razors and the lack of any medical laws, centuries of barbers practiced medicine as well as hair cutting. A guy could walk in, sit down and request “a little off the top. And while you’re at it, see what you can do with the sideburns and that fractured ankle. The red on the barber pole supposedly represents blood (which showed he could do surgery or just hook you up to some leeches for half an hour) and the white stripes are for the bandages that he would use afterwards. Originally the bandage was actually wrapped around the pole so it would be handy, but a painted version was put outside to advertise the business.

And for centuries, barbers practiced dentistry as well. Talk about a one-stop health clinic. Maybe that’s what this country needs to get health care back under control. I know I trust my barber Frank a lot more than I do the Washington politicians! Gradually barbers and surgeons parted ways but for years in Merry Olde England two barbers as well as two surgeons had to sign off on a new doctor’s license.

Barbers’ prestige and success have always risen and declined with the fashion of the times. After years of shaved faces for the big shots in Rome, Emperor Hadrian comes along with a face full of scars and bumps and so he grows a beard. Well, if the king’s got a beard, you don’t want to be showing up at the palace with cheeks as soft as a baby’s behind. Thank goodness barbers had tooth pulling to fall back on. Or, if the king’s beardless, so should you be. The Bible tells how Joseph was worked over by the royal barbers before he went to meet and greet Pharaoh. With a lot of thanks to barbering, things worked out very well for Joseph indeed. Samson of course, is another story, but then, his hair wasn’t cut by a barber, was it?

The first barber college opened in Chicago in 1893. A new age of professionalism and skill was rising up in the land. And whether the barber shops were the ERs of old or the shops of fashion, they always held a special place for the men to gather and talk politics, catch up on what was new, hear the latest fishing tales and wait out the results of local elections. Rome even erected a statue in honor of the great city’s first barber. How’s that for prestige?

There is an old scratchy home movie that shows me as a little red-headed boy with what was obviously America’s first Afro. I had bushy curley-ques of carrot colored ringlets sticking up in all directions. I looked like a little baby trying to get a job as Little Orphan Annies’ stunt double. As the movie plays, it’s a sunny afternoon in downtown Dalton. My mom, dressed like Beaver’s mom, Mrs. Cleaver, smiles at the camera, has me wave and then we walk in a glass door. There are a few flash frames and then a little man walks out. Me. My first haircut, as much a right of passage back in those days as slaying a lion is to a Zulu teenager, had transformed me into a miniaturized version of a grown-up. My hair is short, neat, and split with a perfect part along one side. It looks like I’m ready to sell life insurance to Munchkins. I do look a little shell-shocked though and there’s no footage of the actual haircut because my mom said I screamed and cried like, well, like the baby I was and dad had to help hold me down under the scissors. It’s a wonder I came out of there with both ears.

As a kid I still wasn’t’ that crazy about haircuts. I don’t know if it was the fact that I had to sit still for as long as five minutes or the genetic distrust of having somebody behind you with a sharp instrument. My father took me to the barbershop in the arcade of Bry-Man’s Plaza. I don’t remember what the exact name of the place was although I can still picture the lettering on the glass door that was usually propped open to let in the fresh air. We just always called it “Mack’s Barbershop” because that’s who cut my hair, Mack. On a Saturday morning there would be a crowd of men and boys in there and there were at least five barber chairs as I recall. You would take a seat along the wall in front of “your” barber and wait. He’d usually tell you how many were in front of you. When my turn came up he would get this little booster bench thing that went across the big seat and get my head up on level with everyone else’s. For years it was fun to sit on that bench, but as I got older I was a little embarrassed to have to use it. And then, just like a man, when I finally got tall enough to sit in the chair like a grown-up, I kind of missed that booster bench.

My Dad kept his Army-style crew cut well into the 1970s. He liked it because it was neat and trim and easy to take care of. Just a little dab’ll do ya, and it did him. Meanwhile, I’m seeing the Beatles and the Monkees on TV and wanting hair like those cool teenagers. With no concept of all that brillo-like hair like mine would never “wave” when I shook it in time to music, I wanted it longer. Dad and I compromised. I could grow the bangs out a little, as long as the top, back and sides were kept short. Think of it as a reverse mullet. I was OK with that and there are four or five years of school pictures where this ’60s-style cool look kept me looking hip. Especially with the Buddy Holly horned-rim glasses I wore.

Now, I look forward to a haircut. A trip to the barbershop is a time to just relax and take a break from the day-to-day worries of living. There’s nothing to do but sit and wait for it to be your turn and then to sit in the big chair and chat, or listen to either the radio playing or the TV turned to sports or maybe news. The barber pops the clean, white apron and puts it on you. The hum from the clippers helps cut off the outside world even more. And for a nearsighted guy like me, when the glasses come off, I might as well be in one of those sensory deprivation tanks they use for therapy. It’s transforming when you watch those hunks of hair drop off your head and onto your lap. You’re making a change, getting something actually done and you’re going to come out of the experience better than when you went in. There’s not that many things nowadays you can say that about. And then, when the head’s done, comes the part that always gives you a little thrill… the hot, foamy shaving cream comes out of the electric dispenser and the barber dabs it on the back of your neck. Any hotter and it would burn you. If it’s winter it warms you up like standing in front of the fire. If it’s a hot summer day it can make you pop a sweat. Then comes a genuine antique experience. He brings out a straight razor and works your neck and around the ears. This ties you directly with those grandpas and great-grandpas in those 100-year-old family photos you’ve seen in the old picture albums. You’re going through the exact same experience they went through all those decades ago. There’s something restorative in the experience.

Finally, a hot steamy rag cleans off the last flecks of foam and it’s done. The barber spins you to look at your new, improved self in the mirror. You rub a hand across the new do, and voila, the best 10 bucks you’ve spent all month.

The most legendary barbershop in American history has to be Floyd’s Barbershop from “The Andy Griffith Show” in the fictional town of Mayberry, N.C. And although it only lives on in black and white shadows on the old channels that still show re-runs, I came as close to getting a haircut there as a person can. Back in the early 1990s I was living and working some in Los Angeles. Over in the valley, next to Burbank, is a little area called Toluca Lake. I rented a room in a house there for a few months and found out that in that area is where Andy Griffith lives. Not near where I was, but over in the mansions near where Bob Hope, who developed Toluca Lake, lived. In talking with some neighbors and a couple of people in some of the local shops, I discovered that Andy got his hair cut at the one genuine barbershop up on the main drag. It was a strip of shops not unlike Bry-Man’s Plaza. One day I made the pilgrimage, having let my hair get a little extra shaggy just for the occasion. I walked in, saw the hunting and sports magazines sitting around, and sat down in a wooden, spindle-backed chair and waited my turn. I climbed up in the barber chair and gave my instructions. Short and neat please. It was a treat. My hair was no better or more manageable than after any other haircut I’ve ever gotten, and I paid a little more, but, although I can’t say I’ve gotten a haircut at Floyd’s Barbershop, I can say this: I got my hair cut where Andy Griffith gets his hair cut. And if that’s not Floyd’s, I don’t now what is.

Mark Hannah of Dalton works in film and video production.

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