There is Much to Learn at a Barber Shop

I love bar­ber shops, maybe because the ear­li­est pho­to of me freezes an image of my pro bar­ber uncle, Alexander Kaminsk, giv­ing me my first hair­cut. Perched on my grandmother’s lap, I look non­plussed as he does his scis­sor work. I dis­play no incre­ment of the ter­ror cap­tured pho­to­graph­i­cal­ly that same year when grandmom’s sis­ter, Nettie, turned loose a bull­dog pup­py to lick my cheru­bic, wail­ing face.

Funny how first mem­o­ries shape us. I have gone to the same bar­ber­shop in Winchester for the last decade. I hap­pi­ly describe the expe­ri­ence because it reflects many of the attrib­ut­es I remem­ber about Uncle Alex’s shop.

A vin­tage bar­ber chair is ground zero and a thing of beau­ty. You don’t sit in it as much as ride it. When I land in the chair, I often reach down for a seat belt, then chide myself. Duh. Most bar­ber­shops are dec­o­rat­ed for the manoverse. Vintage signs, stuffed, hunt­ed prey, sports posters. Here in Winchester, the ubiq­ui­tous Big Blue Nation ath­let­ic sched­ules adorn the walls. Often, twangs of coun­try radio fill the air, along with sto­ries of the day from peo­ple who wait.

I learn a lot in bar­ber shops. I have been privy to the med­ical his­to­ries of peo­ple injured in auto assem­bly frame shops, con­ver­sa­tions about the best way to fer­til­ize toma­to plants, the his­to­ry of local geo­des and where to find them, a search for a pink-foot­ed goose, the depth of roadbed crush­er run, etc. When I trav­el, I get to prac­tice the local lan­guage. I sel­dom have much to add, because I know noth­ing about most of the top­ics cov­ered or have no words. But it is always a joy to lis­ten. I am still pon­der­ing the escha­to­log­i­cal impli­ca­tions of a remark dur­ing one vis­it, “ya got­ta wear snake britch­es up to your hips because it’s rough out there.”

Everywhere I have lived or trav­eled, I search out the best pos­si­ble bar­ber shop. I steer clear of fran­chise snip­pers. To be ful­ly trans­par­ent, I don’t have much hair—my cov­er­age is ful­ly trans­par­ent around my bald spot, which is revealed by pho­to-drone fly­overs at trib­ute band concerts. 

I will be for­ev­er grate­ful for a cos­me­tol­o­gist named Joe in Charlotte, North Carolina, who decades ago insist­ed that he attack my “neck beard” with a razor. I had parad­ed for years with an unkempt nape. He saved my soul. Joe wasn’t as much a bar­ber as a salon per­former.  He regaled me once with a sto­ry about a client who brought in a Cadillac dealer’s swatch of her new pink ride and asked to have her bouf­fant col­ored to match. Since those flam­boy­ant days with Joe, I have pret­ty much stuck with places that have a Marvy Pole to get back to my roots, dwin­dling as they are.

Kristinka in Ukraine sham­pooed out the cut’s mulch from my head bone. She danced with the post-rinse dry­er in hand. Antonio in Portugal always pro­duced a clean cape from a lit­tle draw­er beside his chair. He put a dab of astrin­gent on my side­burns and the neck-beard evac­u­a­tion site to seal the deal.

I admire bar­bers, wher­ev­er they work. It must be exhaust­ing to be on your feet all day, tak­ing orders from clients. Recently, I read a review of a shop called Gentlemen of Dublin (GOD) that I pho­tographed but failed to vis­it. I had spent too much time at Whelan’s Pub drink­ing Guinness. I didn’t want any­body near my head. The review said, “The lads are real­ly sound. Very atten­tive to what you are look­ing for, always mak­ing sure they are doing what you have asked.” 

I can’t imag­ine being told what to do all day, can you?

Perhaps had I “put my head in the hands of GOD,” I would have received an answer to my ques­tion about the snake britches.