The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

Every blue moon or so a new entrepreneurial startup appears in the sleepy hollows of the South End. A computer repair shop stuck out a shingle ten years ago, some techie kid who figured the retirees would need his skills first time their desktop Dell froze up — and he was right. Trouble was, there aren’t enough of us old timers. There was that dog groomer place, the Pampered Pooch, who specialized in poodle pompadours but quit shortly after Jenny Winesack’s fox terrier took issue with the jetted bubble bath and bit her on the face, nearly taking out an eye. The neighbors claimed the terrier was vicious even without the water torture treatment and advised her to sue Jenny, but she said no, she guessed she just wasn’t the Dog Whisperer she’d thought she was.

So when I saw the wooden sign down past Tyee Store nearly to the Head where the road hairpins back north toward our place, I shook my head, figuring Ralph’s Old Time Tonsorial Emporium would last a month or two. I also figured I ought to get myself a trim before the place closed its doors forever and so I rode my bike in one sunny day down the long overgrown driveway into the nettle festooned interior, surprised to discover Ralph had added a room off the old Stuart place where he’d installed an old time hydraulic barber chair, a double basin porcelain sink and even a vintage barber pole spinning red white and blue on its axis by the door.

Little Jimmy was in the chair and Fairlane Fred was sitting his turn. “Take a seat, won’t be long, I cut faster’n a logger on meth,” Ralph, I presumed, said in greeting. I took off my hat and joined the crowd. The conversation was lively, political and heated enough for my liking. The cut was fair and the price too. “Come back,” he said, sweeping my locks into a metal dustpan, shaking the apron for Big Walter who’d come in behind me. “I will,” I said, and I have. And damn if Ralph’s Old Time Tonsorial Emporium didn’t make a go of it, despite all odds.

Barney, my barber, is about to take down his red white and blue rotating tubular pole for good. He’s been cutting hair since back in the day when South Enders either opted for a butch or let it grow their arses, as Barney puts it. You could tell a man’s politics by his hair back then. Needless to say, I didn’t require Barney’s services back in my radical days. And Barney probably would’ve refused to let me sit in his leather chair. “Go to a stylist, someone who’ll cut a woman’s hair.”

His shop has sat at the same spot for about 45 years, open for business and gossip both behind the mini-storage just north of the Diner. He owns the mini-storage which is why it’s there. In fact, Barney owns a lot of the land around him, mostly good business acumen … and tips from his customers on who’s selling out cheap and moving lock stock and rainbarrel to someplace where the sun shines more than once a month.

Barney himself isn’t much of a talker. He’s mostly a good listener. He isn’t much of a barber either, in most of us customers’ opinion, but he’s reasonable about price and it’s a kick to sit with a few other South Enders in for their 2 week trim on what’s left of their hair and jaw on the politics of the day. Discussions can get pretty lively, especially around election years, but even the weather is open to debate these days.

If anyone asks Barney ‘how’s business?’ he shrugs, grabs a scissor and comb before answering, ‘pretty slow.’ He mentions every time all the funerals, how us customers are dying off faster than replacements roll in. I admit, I only go in every 6 months or so, which doesn’t help his retirement fund. He knows I like to stir the pot when I’m parked, waiting my turn, just rev up the discussion for the hell of it, something I pretty much only do at the barber shop, don’t ask me why.

I’m going to miss Barney’s Barber shop. I can go years without a trim, but I’ll miss that finger on the pulse of what my neighbors really think, no holds barred, no punches pulled. Go down to Super Cuts and see if you can get past banalities about the weather. Although … I could always bring up Global Warming, see where the coiffed crowd stands on that.