a cellphone shot from my hometown barbershop
You may want to clear any small kids from the room before reading on.
My hometown barber, Eddie, is one of the nicest guys you can imagine.
The shop has three chairs, but his father and older brother are gone now, so it’s not as busy as it was years ago.
The front window is filled with tomato plants, which continue to produce fruit all winter, somehow. And there’s a lot of fishing and bowling trophies.
And it’s always neat as a pin, so when I received this shocking photo, or at least, a photo of a shock of hair on the floor, I was shocked.
I’d forgotten! Every year, once the Xmas season is over, one of Eddie’s friends stops by, a semi-pro Santa Claus actor.
He got a flat-top and trim, but will then start growing out his beard and hair all over again, only 342 days to go folks.
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Fabulous!!
Thanks, Anne. 🙂 Kind of a strange sight.
Oh, that’s wonderful storytelling, Robert. 😄
Thank you, Jane. 😊
Ha! Great story and I really love the photo because of that floor.
Thank you Kristen. I think that floor is there a long time. Nothing ever changes in the shop, except he won a new TV set in a drawing, but the new one is locked on the weather channel just like the old one
Something so comforting about barber shops, the weather channel, and prize television sets.
I’d bet you the floor goes back to c.1960. When my folks built our new house, the basement was fitted out as a sort of rec room. The floor had that same kind of tile, except ours was black and pink. It wasn’t vinyl, exactly, but a kind of early, rubbery tile. My dad thought it would last forever, and it looks like it’s doing just fine in the barber shop.
I think you’re absolutely right, Linda. The shop is from the ’50’s, but later on, they enclosed the front porch, when the boys got out of the army, to make room for two more chairs, and I’m guessing that’s when the floor tiles went down.
Indeed, a kind of strange sight you do not see very often on a blog site, Robert.
🎅🏻🙂
His might be the only barber shop anywhere that has tomato plants growing in it. May he and the plants continue to thrive!
Thanks Neil. 🍅 some of his tomato plants live for two or three years in the shop. The tomatoes usually aren’t very big, but they do ripen and he always has some to eat
I can’t imagine Santa without his beard, but I guess he is now able to go about his normal daily business. 👶
He’s just another commuter in a red fur-trimmed suit, driving a Prius to the toy factory
Shucks, that shock of shocking hair shook us up. It’s not from a sheik, and not chic at all.
Haha! 😄
Well, you *think* he’s an actor. 😉
😁 I’ll bring a plate of cookies to the barbershop next time I see him, and watch how he reacts.
Haha! (Watch out for those elves, though….)
The barber shop, an American icon, but also an endangered species. Thanks for giving it space in your blog, Robert, and have a great Sunday,
Pit
Thanks, Pit, and you too! Sometime I’d like to try a real barbershop shave, with hot towels, etc.
🙂
You can’t keep a secret like this from the kids.Otherwise they’ll think Santa is really Billy Gibbons. He’s got to get a trim but it should be by Ma Claus.
I haven’t gone to a barber in years, do it myself. But I learned a lot of stuff as a kid at the barber’s shop…most of which my mother didn’t want me to know. Maybe Santa getting a trim was one of those forbidden topics.
Well I guess in a red suit, he’d be a sharp dressed man, but if I saw that ZZ Top guy going toward my chimney, I’d keep a fire burning all night.
Not a lot of locker room/barbershop talk in Eddie’s place, people like to take their kids there, people mostly talk about fishing, bowling, who’s died recently, etc.
Sounds like the conversation when I used to visit my aunts and uncles. Add to that who has how much money and it would be exactly like that.
I’ve been sitting here trying to imagine Santa with a flat-top. It’s like trying to imagine the elves on a bowling team, or Mrs. Claus making avocado toast instead of sugar cookies. Sometimes, the day-to-day lives of the glitteratti aren’t as glamorous as we think!
😎🎅🏻
That hair looks a little knotty.
It was nice when it was on his head. But you better watch out, with comments like that! He’s making a list, and checking it twice.
Nice! I really like how this piece is framed. Cheers!
Thank you, Cecilia!
Pure charm, brilliantly done. 💈:-) 💈
I’ll pass the compliment along to Eddie, it’s his shop, thank you Lynn
🙂
For some reason I was reminded of The Gift of the Magi, by O. Henry.
That’s an interesting take – I guess Santa could sell his beard, to get something nice for Mrs. Claus, like a trip to Aruba or someplace warm
What is hilarious to me is my visceral reaction to that photo. “OH NO!” screamed my inner child. 😀
🎅💈💇♂️✂️ Haha! Sorry! But think of all the milk and cookie crumbs in there, gotta be pruned back at some point.
LOL Yeah, that would get to be a problem.