Yesteryear

[namguy69]

Well, this is something way off the main stream that this forum has ever seen. I directing this post to the guys, the fellows that are 50 years old and older, probably most of the men here wouldn't remember what I'm about to post. I'm 56, so I remember quite a bit of years past.

In this world rubble, buble, toil, and trouble it's nice to think back when, mostly on Friday or Saturday, to go to the Barber Shop. Not the Salon at the mall,hair stylists, etc. Just a barber shop where everyone knew each other. Just about every neighborhood had one. I was raised in the city so there were many, many barber shops all over. But it was a place you could relax, talk, hear what talk was going around...gamble. The different smells that came from the combination of after shaves combined with heat smell coming off the electric clippers, the general smell of the place, it was nice. After a hair cut you could get a shave for...$0.25 - $0.50! How compfortable it was, how much at ease you were when rose up from the chair. Too bad these younger guys, at least most of them, will never experence such pleasure. They were good times indeed....
namguy69

[Jack]

You can still buy Bay Rum at many drug stores (too bad you can't actually buy drugs at a drugstore). Slap some on your face after your next shave and get all nostalgic.

[bishop]

i get my hair cut at an old school barber shop.. old italian guy named vincent... guy's had the place for at least 4 decades.. people don't talk to each other because it's the city, but everyone talks to vinny..

when i was in jersey, i went to another barber shop run by younger guys around my age.. i used to date one of the barber's sisters. a lot of people knew each other, but the place was always pretty social when i went in there. cool people too.

i can't stand a salon - they suck on many, many levels. the last salon i went to, i was persuaded to get my hair washed by some elvis-lookin male barber whose touch was a little too sensitive for my liking.. plus, the haircut sucked and definitely wasn't worth the friggin $25 i had to fork over for it all...

[PatrickHenry]

I like my Flowbee. Barbers charge too dang much these days...

I had a Flowbee since 94 and saved hundreds of dollars.

[bishop]

i definitely don't need to go to a barber either... DHT's making it that way..

[brien]

Growing up in Asbury Park NJ, my barber was "Sal" the Barber. Of course a great "Italian Stallion" and my family was very friendly with his family. He had some hot daughters but I stayed away because I liked my hair.

Things are all changed around today with guys goingt o "beauty salons" and unisex joints. I can still find a few old fashioned "barbers" but a good friend now cuts my hair which is much shorter and thinner than it was when I was 18.

Bish, you will have the honor of taking your son, if that little person growing in Jazz is a son, of taking him for his first haircut in a few years. One of the many milestones in life. Kind of like sitting him in your lap and letting him steer while you are driving out in the country or on a neighborhood street. Don't forget the camera.

[bishop]

i also grew up in jersey... you remember the woodbridge area? i'd occassionally go to this barber named ed.. older guy, ethnic "american", he definitely loved to talk politics. only problem was that he was a huge conspiracy theorist, and a gun nut. the way to handle the guy was to smile and nod to everything he said - cuz if you began to debate him, he'd start getting pretty pissed off.. heh, and you don't want a nutty guy with sharp barber scissors getting crazy on you.

and thinking about bringing a camera to the barber's... heh.. that'll be funny. the kid will definitely be going to ol' vinny's shop.

[Georgia]

I grew up as a kid in the late 60's, early 70's in Bloomington, MN but did not experience the atmosphere you described. My father left work at 4:30AM so mom got us 4 kids off to school.
After school I'd hang out at home or dissappear somewhere in the neighborhood to fly kites or my COX string controlled plane or play war with flashlights.

Dad would get home about 6PM and drift off to sleep watching Ed Sullivan or some other "grown-up" show..
Our family went pop-up camping almost every summer weekend and I really enjoyed that.
There was always something to do whether to fix the car, house repair etc and didn't leave much time for that kind of leasure.
But I can clearly remember working on our 1964 Belvedere or the '69 Fury III we had.

Late 70's our group of friends would meet at "Jimmys Lemmon Tree", a small resturaunt and sip coffee for hours and talk about the topics. I guess that's kinda what you experienced.

[RickSp]

I like my Flowbee. Barbers charge too dang much these days...

I had a Flowbee since 94 and saved hundreds of dollars.

A real for life Flowbee? Kewl. I've only seen them on TV.

[RickSp]

Barbershops. I have such mixed memories of barbershops. We are about the same age. As a kid in Texas I never liked or disliked the trip to the barbershop. That changed when I went to a barbershop that from time to time had a tattered copy of Playboy buried in the pile of magazines. I then decided that I liked getting my hair cut and that I preferred to go alone.

When I moved to Florida in high school I learned to stay away from the retired barbers who had retired to move South. They were usually less expensive but were often close enough to blind to be dangerous.

As a young adult I went to old time shops with Italian barbers with hairy knuckles who were not great conversationalists unless it was about the horses. I didn't bet so we didn't have much to say to each other.

In later years I started going a uni-sex shop where a female stylist would start by tilting me backwards and shampooing my hair. The combination of the warm water, the scalp massage and the young lady bending over me, her chest inches from my nose, made getting my hair cut delightful and sexy again. Better even than the tatterd Playboys.

These days I often go with my two sons. We stop by the mall beauty parlor andget our hair cut by whomever is available. Last time we went, my ten year old got a short spikey cut that looked good on him. It was only after my turn that I realized that the woman knew only one way to cut hair. I got up from the chair with the same spiky styling. looked great on a 10 year but at 53 with a salt and pepper beard it was pretty silly. But if you can't laugh at yourself, who can you laugh at?

[Nono]

I've been going to the same lady for about 15 years. She only does guys' hair, but there's another lady who does women on the other side, so yes it's a salon. But it's cosily old, and very cheap by today's bullshit/salonized standards.

By now we know each other pretty well and have a good rapport -- I trust her with my hair but, hey, I know all the details of her personal life after all these years so she'd better watch it.:)

When I was a kid (the 60s) I went to an Italian barber name of Felice (a wonder there's anyone left back in Italy, eh?). He even had a whatsit, a barber shop "pole" do we call it? You know, turning spiral thingy.

(...) heat smell coming off the electric clippers (...)

Jeez, guy, how modernistic: electric clippers LOL. Felice had one of those, uh, vibrators that he strapped to the back of his hand with which he administered a neck massage.

Afraid I never had anyone hold a straight razor to my throat, which is just as well in my view. Remember that Monty Python sketch where the barber, weilding mean-looking scissors, strides up to the newly arrived, aproned-and-waiting customer and raves at him something like "So, you'd like me to (ahh! BloodSpurtJabArtery!!!ahhh!!ughh!!) cut your hair, would you?"

[Tony Clifton]

I never liked barber shops. I have been cutting my own hair for about 15 years or so. For the past 10 or 11 I've been shaving my head. I used to say I was bald by choice --- I'm not so sure that's the case anymore. ;-)

I'm 38 years old. I haven't paid for a hair cut since I was in the military.