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\u2019t 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\u2019s 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\u2019t the Dog Whisperer she\u2019d thought she was.<\/p>\n
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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
Little Jimmy was in the chair and Fairlane Fred was sitting his turn. \u201cTake a seat, won\u2019t be long, I cut faster\u2019n a logger on meth,\u201d 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. \u201cCome back,\u201d he said, sweeping my locks into a metal dustpan, shaking the apron for Big Walter who\u2019d come in behind me. \u201cI will,\u201d I said, and I have. And damn if Ralph\u2019s Old Time Tonsorial Emporium didn\u2019t make a go of it, despite all odds.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[6],"tags":[7857,7367,5889],"class_list":["post-20412","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rantings-and-ravings","tag-business-startups-on-the-south-end","tag-hair-cuts-and-polemics","tag-hair-styling-on-the-south-end"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20412","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20412"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20412\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20413,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20412\/revisions\/20413"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}