The more things change

The oldest magazine I saw on the tables was 17 years old. The newest was 8 years old. The radio in the shop played hits from 30 or 40 years ago. There was a poster on the wall displaying the various haircuts provided in the shop.

The barber’s shelf had various razors and scissors and a big jar of blue alcohol for cleaning the implements of the trade. There were also multiple aftershaves, foams and gels on the barber’s shelf.

The barber was not a Mexican-American or Italian-American, as my barbers had been in my youth. No, this barber was a Vietnamese-American. But he used some of the same vernacular, telling me he was going to “freshen me up” and make me “feel like a brand-new man.” He gave me “the gentleman’s cut,” as pictured on the wall poster.

I’ve been going to the same unisex barber shop/beauty salon for many years. It’s just down the road from my house, and the owner is my longtime great neighbor and friend. I know the stylists who work for her, and they do a fine job with my lack of hair.

On this day, though, I was out of town and in need of a rug trim, if not a total rug rethink. I’d been swimming a lot and the chlorine had been drying out, and thereby bushing out, my lack of hair. So I decided to get my lack of hair cut, and walked into a nearby one-chair barber shop.

I hadn’t been in an old-fashioned men’s barber shop in decades, but I felt like I’d been dropped back into my youth. The small talk was the same, the slightly stunned looks of the newly shorn were the same, the entire ambiance was just like it was when I was a kid 50 years ago.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Fifty years ago, though, I had a forest of hair atop my head. Now I only have a few of what I call “scruffles.”

I think folks like me, who only have half a head of hair, at best, and only take half the time and effort for a barber to do his/her job, should get half off on the price. I suggested that to the customer in the barber’s chair before I was, a guy about 15 years younger but even balder. He agreed, but he didn’t seem as comfortable with his lack of hair as I am. That will come with time, though, because it ain’t coming back.

I also returned to a crowded movie theater over the weekend for the first time since the start of the pandemic. I went to movie theaters during the pandemic, but only twice. Once I went for a local premiere of a movie I’d written, when the pandemic had slowed. I went again a few weeks ago to see “Dog” starring Channing Tatum when I was required to be out of the house, but there were only five other people in the fairly large theater.

This weekend, though, it was standing-room only and I was a bit nervous. My wife and I were sharing a big tub of popcorn, and I had to debate whether to raise my mask to eat a handful of popcorn and then put the mask back in place while I chewed/ swallowed, or just leave it down the entire time I indulged in the popped delight.

I chose the latter. Yes, maybe I exposed myself to COVID, but for the first time in too long I was in my happiest of happy places, in a movie theater watching a great film while eating popcorn. So OK, I let down my guard for a bit. When the popcorn was done and gone, though, I put my mask back up and kept it there for the rest of the movie.

The more things change, the more they stay changed.

Bret Kofford is a screenwriter who teaches writing and film classes at San Diego State University-Imperial Valley. He can be reached at Kofford@ roadrunner.com