People often ask me: “Why do you live way out there in the middle of nowhere?” It’s simple: because you can go anywhere in the Greater Metropolitan Piney Top area and for 12 to 20 bucks get an eight-dollar haircut. But I’ve always only gone to The Village Barbershop. It’s one of the very last outposts of a dying breed of American institution, a one-horse operation run by an old country boy who’d be a redneck if he lived at a lower elevation, and who’d retire if he could afford to.
On the walls are broken antlers, antique fly rods, faded pictures of bears and boats and a portrait of his dog sitting up straight, looking so proud and handsome that if he were wearing a tie instead of a collar, you’d swear it was his high school graduation photo. And somewhere in the ramshackle stacks of Car and Driver, Field and Stream, and Popular Mechanics, you’re sure to find a tattered old issue of Playboy, circa 1957.
An ancient poster proclaims, “We specialize in cutting hair right: the way you like it” with pictures of the different hairstyles from which you can choose. These include “traditional,” “collegiate” and “businessman,” among many others. As he’s tying the apron on me, the barber will ask, “What’ll it be today?”
He smiles when I answer: “I’ll have the ‘flattop with fenders.’”
In the corner, on a rickety little stereo cabinet that’s missing one door, is an old, tube-style television and VCR playing an episode of Bonanza. Or maybe it’s Tom and Jerry. Either way, I’m always glad I needed a haircut.
But one doesn’t necessarily go there just for a haircut, or even for a haircut at all. Guys like to congregate there on Saturday mornings to discuss the weather, the merits of their new work boots, old trucks, fishing tackle and fathers-in-law. One guy comes in now and again–in no need whatsoever of a haircut–and sits in the always vacant second chair, pontificating endlessly upon a wide range of subjects about which he typically knows, at most, nothing at all.
The proprietor isn’t exactly the best barber in the world, but he’s absolutely the best barber in town. I love to remind him and the other clients of that. And when I do, he reminds all of us: “Hey! I’m the ONLY barber in town!”
Now, I can’t stand to be all shaggy, particularly around my ears and the back of my neck, especially in warm weather. So when the Crony Virus struck, I found myself in a bit of a pickle, what with the shop being closed down. Yet when the restrictions were finally loosened and the place was allowed to reopen, my problem wasn’t solved. Nobody in the place would wear a mask! (Certainly not the barber himself.) Country folk are proud, independent people and don’t believe in all that scientific nonsense.
So I called my neighbor and asked whether his wife cut his hair and if so, would she consider cutting mine. He said no, but their tenant in the little flat over the garage might and he would ask her. Well, to my relief, she agreed. In a few minutes I was sitting in front of the garage under a sheet, both of us masked. I learned that, prior to retirement, she had actually been a licensed cosmonautilist or cosmopologist (or whatever you call them).
I guess her life lacks excitement, because she wouldn’t take a nickel. But I told her I had been perilously close to taking the barber shears my brother and I had bought years ago (to experiment with) and shaving my head clean as a whistle. I insisted she take $10. Honestly, it wasn’t the world’s greatest haircut, but it was way better than the buffalo hide I had been wearing — not to mention how I would have looked as a freshly shorn sheep.
We enjoyed some pleasant conversation and this good neighbor expressed her willingness to cut my hair again, for which I am grateful. So I guess I’ve solved my problem. But I sure do miss sittin’ around the old “antique shop,” chewing the fat with the other local fossils for whom the style of our hair is the least of our concerns.
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