The Barbershop: A Brief Memoir

In 1934, my father, fresh from the farm, having seen enough of the farm, sought refuge from the ravages of the Great Depression.

Mired in a small Ohio town, he and his beautiful red-haired beloved married, partly out of the pragmatic conviction that two could live cheaper than one. This principle, although wise on the face of it, lost its application upon the realization that they had no place in which to live cheaper. Mother had snaggled a stock clerk job at a grocery, while Father seemed resigned to selling shoe laces door to door.

Meanwhile, long hours and short pay at the grocery for Mother and decreasing expectations for Father resulted in their living in the basement of my grandfather's bungalow. Many years later, I visited that bungalow and was permitted a trip to the basement. It was a cell in which, today, no prisoner would be permitted to be kept.

One day, during a leisurely, head-hanging stroll along the poplar-lined main street of town, Father noticed an empty store front with a forlorn sign that hopelessly announced the store's availability for rent. The owner lived above the store. Father, leaving his bewildered bride on the curb, scampered up the stairs to meet a haggard, elderly man with a lazy eye.

He regaled the owner with his dream of always wanting to have a business in a space just like the one below. He spoke of his young bride, his determination, his pride, and his complete inability to pay any rent. But Father would clean the space and maintain the whole building and run errands and . . . We can only imagine the thoughts and images that must have passed through the old man's mind. Perhaps he saw in Father the faded aspirations of his own youth.

After the deal was struck and Father was about the leave, the old man, with one eye on Father and the other eye straying one knows not where, asked as an after thought what business Father was in. His reply was, "I'm . . . a . . . er. . . a barber!"

Father found the tools of his "trade," scissors and a straight razor, at a flea market and paid for them from the meager earnings of the red-haired bride who worked extra days stocking cereal and rice. He toted in a pallet that had been abandoned in an alley, placed a chair on it, and opened for business.

The ancient man upstairs, perhaps energized by all the activity, kept his one good eye on Father and made suggestions.

Perhaps his most useful idea was that Father stop giving free haircuts to his many friends.

Even Mother wondered whether this was the best business model, but Father was shrewd enough to know that a good first step to becoming a barber was to learn how to cut hair somehow.

And what are friends for? Word of mouth soon carried the day, and paying customers began to show up.

Meanwhile, Mother hung a large curtain across the back of the shop, and it was behind that curtain that they lived. It was the first home they could call their own and almost certainly the place of my conception.

Father was a barber for two years, and his angel, the old man who saw two things at once, passed away without ceremony. One romantic ending to this episode would be that the elderly gentleman's will left the building to my parents. It was not to be.

Far more romantic for me is the true ending that 40 years later, my father, a self-made man to the extreme, retired as the Chief Industrial Engineer of the largest company in the fastener industry. No college, no inheritance, no luck ... just imagination and hard work, the properties of the man seen long ago by the ancient with the lazy eye.

Here's to you, Father! And here's to your old barbershop!

Cato ...