CIVIC CENTERS
There was a time, not too many years ago, when the local barber shop filled the communities need for, well ...a civic center even though limited largely to talk rather than do. Civic improvements were usually well discussed in the barber shops before being taken before the town council. The hair-cuttery was a good source of news of the day factual or otherwise, true blended with wishful thinking and a bit of down right lying. It could be a place of entertainment. Some barbers had a special knack for remembering the jokes and stories they heard and of repeating them often for days on end.
There were few natural comedians among them, but barbers often developed set routines re-telling the jokes, stories, gossip, rumors, and - no doubt a few downright fabrications they had picked up along their scissoring way. It was a good thing for the hair-cut business, too. It made for extra visits even if a man didn't need a haircut or a shave. Barbers, as a rule, learned to talk almost endlessly about things that filled a primary need within the customer's own little world. Barbers, by and large, were a serious lot, now that I think of it, am while they did a great deal of talking but said very little which was their very own. Now and then, however one came up with a gem of an idea. One, whom I recall, that our town could, if it wished to do so, revive the old community band it had, at one time, sported. He, after all, talked regularly with many of the band's former members. It was not too difficult for him to get them excited about restarting the town band. His name was Byron and he played clarinet. It was not uncommon to find him seated in the shop's sole barbering chair; head against the padded rest; eyes closed as if he were watching the flawless panorama which, illogically, always seemed to go with the re-playing of a memorized tune from long ago. Single handedly, Byron, the barber, got the old town band going again by shaming the oldsters and by teasing and urging youngsters such as my brother and I to join on trombone and cornet.
The local barber shop was often a source of strength and inspiration to men. It was a “Men Only” domain as a rule. The only time you saw women in the town barber show was Saturday morning when they herded reluctant children forward to mount the high barbering chair with about as much enthusiasm as they might show at the dentist's office.. Some children had to be held down for their first hair-cut while others accepted it as one of the fearful moments a child must face as they advanced in years. Saturday morning was deemed to be the proper proper time for children's hair-cutting expeditions and barbers feared them as one of the occupational hazards they had to learn to face. Saturday afternoon barber shop activities turned to sports such as hunting and fishing and Saturday night until a vague “closing time” - the subject was politics – all male.
It was quite an asset to the community, at least, from a male perspective, and the traditional barber shop ceased to exist when the first radio was taken into such a shop. That fantastic, high-tech, electronic, blue-toothed gizmo of our time sealed the fate of the barber shop as we once knew it to be.
I can't say that I miss it, but it is good for us to remember – at times – how it used to be.
A.L.M. December 4, 2004 [c616wds]
