Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
Getting a not-too-regular buzz job
As you sit there reading this column, bit by bit, your hair is growing. It might only be a very small amount at a time, but still it keeps on getting longer and longer.
Or, you could be going bald, with your hair growing in some places and fading away in others.
My bushy unkempt main is creeping back from the brow, while it continues to grow wildly on most of my head. Oh my, where does the time go?
I had no idea what I was going to write about for Small Talk this week. Frankly, after writing 500 weekly columns, I’m running out of ideas.
So when Danielle, my barber at Big League Haircuts in Westtown asked me what I was going to write about this week — without thinking about it —I quickly replied, “haircuts.”
What was once my jet black hair is now a mixture of salt and pepper. My wavy silver curls bounce and make me look distinguished and free spirited at the same time — or so I’d like to think.
I’d never been fond of visiting the barber until I met Danielle.
While growing up in the sixties and seventies, we embraced the long hair style of the Beatles. I was no exception. Big hair was in for the girls and long hair was almost required for boys.
I badly wanted to play on the middle school baseball team. A neighbor told me that the coach favored players with short, neatly trimmed hair. When my father heard this, he told the barber to cut it short. With the barber holding a sharp object, it was tough for me to argue. I cried the whole way home.
I was one of the few with a cropped buzz job at the tryouts in seventh grade at Stetson. My unfashionable hair cut made no difference, I was cut from the team during the first round.
Danielle soothes my inner demons. She keeps track of how long it’s been since my last visit. I trust her and she knows not to cut it too short.
When the pandemic struck, I went six months between trims — like many, I had “COVID hair.” It was out of control. It took Danielle much longer than usual to return me and my hair to semi respect ability.
Barber shops are a place to chat. My father
enjoyed going to the barber on Saturday mornings to catch up on the news and he often took me. Typically there were several men waiting for cuts.
As a preteen, I listened to one of the men waiting for a haircut curse like I’d never heard before. He swore like the father on “A Christmas Story” did when the hounds got the family turkey.
I was shocked. No one had ever talked like that around me. After leaving, I asked who that man was and my father said it was a county commissioner. To this day, I wonder how he was able to control himself and not curse at official functions.
A barber once accidentally cut my brother’s ear. Ouch! I’d heard that when a barber draws blood, the haircut it free. That wasn’t the case this time. I wonder if the barber got stiffed.
And why do some say that we should never tip the owner?
My mother started coloring her hair in college. For decades, she dyed it jet black, at home. She finally let it go and stopped using Clairol after several decades. She had no real idea how gray it really was.
When the full gray head of hair that my mother had hidden for so long was uncovered, we saw gloriously silver hair that was more beautiful than ever.
I am sickened by the smell when several women are getting their hair colored. It’s an odor you never forget. And what’s the deal with those helmet-like things women put their heads into?
I also don’t get why anyone would ever stick a noisy blow dryer in their ear first thing in the morning? That hair will eventually dry on its own.
Unbelievably, mixed in with all the stuff that Chris Sanderson collected, you can view some of George Washington’s locks at the Sanderson Museum in Chadds Ford. The Revolutionary War general’s clippings were collected by a local barber. That is way cool and worth a visit!
And of course there’s that old argument. Should we cut a dog’s hair during the warmer months or let it grow? Although it doesn’t seem like it should, does fur keep a dog cooler?
Have you ever seen someone’s hair stand on end when frightened or is that just fodder for novels and movies?
My grandmother wore a decorative, weaved bun of hair that she secured on the top of her head with bobby pins. She had beautiful gray locks and told me the bun was made from her own hair.
If there is a hair in your soup, you might not want to complain too loudly to the server since it might just be your own hair.
So, I’ll see Danielle for another hair cut in three or four months. Maybe she will ask how I want it cut, but probably not since she already has a pretty good idea.
She certainly knows I don’t like it too short.