And I Don’t Mean The Broadway Musical Or The Cowsills Song
My barber marketing post below, and the comment about self-service haircuts, reminded me of my youth.
When I was really little, I can remember going to my current favorite barber a time or two. Mostly, we went to a guy a couple houses from my grandparents. He had a shop setup in his basement, and it was $1.25 for a haircut. Went there many times, and it was kind of unique because the families were friends. He died over 20 years ago, but his wife recently turned 90, and my grandmother, herself 88, with increasing help from my mother, has been helping and watching out for her for many years.
Anyway, we were poor. I could write about the whole mindset associated with that, which is dangerous, hard to break, and can make success harder later. But I won’t right now. When the price of a haircut went up to $1.50, my mother decided we could no longer afford haircuts. We stopped getting them.
So it was that I went through high school, plus a couple years beyond and before, frequently sporting what my friend Tom called “the sheepdog look.”
My mother and sister both cut my hair sometimes. The worst haircut I ever got was from my sister-in-law, who had gone most of the way through hairdressing school before knocking up my about to turn 18 brother and bequeathing him the school loan. Eventually, I ended up cutting my own hair, and surprisingly generated complements. Well, one, that I remember. As it turns out, my hair isn’t the easiest, because it is baby fine.
I found that out when it came time to go to college and I realized I was sick of unruly hair. The notion of image started to occur to me. My friend Tom was pleased to recommend a hair salon place he’d used. Sticker shock! It was $10 for a haircut there, in 1982. But it was also a den of hairdressers or stylists or whatever you want to call them.
I got an interesting hair job there, in which the ideal thing would have been to use mousse every day to make the front of my hair stand up the same way it did when I left the place. I liked it, but had doubts. That day I learned that my hair was baby soft and enjoyable to touch. Who knew! Seems kind of silly to sticky it up with chemicals if it’s that nice. Deb has talked of cutting my hair, as she is apparently passable at it (does a fine job on her own hair), but thinks it is too fine to do well.
For a while I went this place or that where they were stylists, not barbers. Eventually, though, I lived in western Massachusetts for a while and went to a barber in Amherst. She did a fine job of a basic haircut that looked good, for less money than the fancy people. When I moved back here, I sought out a regular barber and ended up with the guy I went to once or twice when I was very little. He did a better cut than anyone. When his son joined the business, he got even better. It was as if the subtle competition was good for the two of them.
I long ago decided that haircuts are not a place to eliminate spending to save a few bucks on the kids, at least not once they are old enough for image to matter to them and their peers. Had I not picked up on the same “too expensive” vibe about haircuts as my mother, and had I been just a little more aware of and concerned about my appearance, no way would I have gone through high school looking as freaky as I did. But a simple, basic haircut by a barber works fine for me.
Sadly, my sister bought into the whole “barbers are too expensive” thing, and her sons have never been to one. They have straight hair, unlike mine, so they more literally sport a sheepdog look. They really do look most of the time as if someone stuck an appropriately sized bowl on their heads and used it to guide a trim. They are vehement about not going, even afraid to. Very strange. I have threatened offered to take them myself. Heh.
Of course, my appreciation of a good haircut makes me no less a slacker about going to one. I can’t imagine going every two weeks like clockwork, as one of my lawyer clients does. No wonder he always looks great. But then, he’s also one of those people who can wear anything and look unnaturally smoothly attired. My theoretical “every six weeks or so” tends to become not less than two months. I think I am up to about four or so at this point. I consider the haircut needed, but easily put off.
The funny thing is, in what I think of as an outrageously shaggy state now, my hair in high school would have been in one of its shorter, relatively manageable phases. Yikes! These days I like to get it cut so short it’s almost a crewcut.
But enough about hair. I need to hustle and get to the barber today! Before I run out of money for it.
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