Going to the barber shop

It is amazing, as I write these articles, how many memories of my early life in Perry keep coming back. I can’t remember the name of someone I met yesterday or something that I was supposed to do today, but I remember in the smallest detail insignificant thing that happened years ago. People tell me this is the result of aging.

One of my memories was going to the old barber shop downtown. I can’t remember if the name was The City Barber Shop or The Perry Barber Shop.

I was a small boy about five or six years old when my Dad took me to town on Saturday morning to get a haircut. He took me to the barber shop, sat me in a chair, and told me to wait for the next barber. He then walked across the street to Edwards Harper Company to visit with other men while I got my hair cut. Back in those days, no one thought anything about leaving a young boy alone.

My turn finally came and the barber picked me up and sat me on a board across the arms of the chair so that I would be high enough for him to reach. He quickly cut my hair, took me off the chair, and told me to sit down to wait for my Dad.

I sat there and waited and waited. Men came in, had their haircut and left. Time went by and I became more and more worried that my Dad had forgotten me and I was abandoned in the barber shop. I was just about to cry when my Dad walked in and rescued me.

I spent many more years going into that barber shop and getting my haircut. Somewhere along the way something went terribly wrong. The barber shop, with its striped, rotating barber pole had always been a bastion of male supremacy. I saw only one member of the opposite sex enter the barber shop in the many years that I visited there for a haircut.

Now the majority of men go to a woman’s Beauty Parlor, hair dresser, or whatever you call them. We sit around with the women waiting for a female hair dresser to cut our hair. I’m afraid that I am guilty of that also and I do like the lady who cuts my hair.

The downtown Perry barber shop had three barber chairs and usually, three barbers cutting hair on a busy day. Their names were Mr. Stripling, Mr. Bozeman and Mr. Summers. In those days we boys always addressed all men as Mr.
Most of us liked for Mr. Bozeman to cut our hair. We thought that he was the better barber of the three. Mr. Summers was pretty rough when he cut our hair and had been known to nick an ear, so we tried not to get him. There was a long line of chairs where we waited for the next barber and if our time came up when Mr. Summers was the next free barber, we would duck our heads and act like we did not hear him.

Many of Perry’s downtown business men went into the barber shop in the morning before going to work and the barbers would shave them with a straight razor. I was fascinated as a young boy, to see the barber lay the man back in the barber chair, wrap a steaming hot towel around his face and then lather his face with a shaving brush. I could never understand how he could shave the whiskers off with the straight razor without nicking the man.
I couldn’t wait until I was old enough to get shaved with a straight razor in the barber shop, but those days were over before I was old enough. I have thought at times that I would like to try shaving with a straight razor, but when I think of the blood, I quickly drop that idea.

The barber shop also had a shoe shine boy that shined the men’s shoes as they got their hair cut in the barber chair. There was also an elevated shoe shine chair where a man could sit and get his shoes shined if he was not getting a haircut. Many men came in every morning just to get his shoes shined. I can still hear the pop of the shiner’s shine rag as he looked back to inspect his work.

One of the shiners that I will always remember was Julius King. He worked in the barber shop when he was young and we became good friends when he worked for The Bank of Perry many years later.
I am happy to say that all is not lost. There are two “real” barber shops operating in Perry.
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