HAIR CUTS: POST #43

My Dad was a barber too. He didn't go to Little Rock and pass a hair cutting test and get his license so he couldn't charge for haircuts, but the guys in Herman Junction would come over and get thier haircut and just give Dad an offering. Even if he didn't make any money cutting other fellows hair, he saved a wad just cutting his boys hair. I didn't like hair cutting time either.

There are a couple of reasons why I didn't like to get my hair cut. One, Dad made me stand up in a chair and he would yell at me to be still. I have never been able to stand still for very long or I will just fall over. Sometimes even today when we stand to pray in church I have to back up to the bench behind me and put my legs up against it to kind of steady msyelf. I'm usually on the front row so there isn't one in front of me to hold on to. But, I would be standing up in that chair trying my best to be still and then I would feel myself sort of swaying back and forth and Dad would say, "Be still, Boy or I am going to mess your hair up." Mom would take my side and say, "Herbert you know that he can't stand still, he'll faint or get sick and throw up." It sure was hard to stand there but I never did faint and I don't remember ever throwing up during a hair cut.

There are a couple of things that I remember well about hair cuts. When I was about 15 some of my friends dared me to get a Mohawk hair cut and they even made up the money to pay for it if I would get one. Dick Davis, the barber in Bay agreed to do it and he did it. He said that it was a little hard to get the streak down the middle exactly where it should be because my head was whop sided. I remember going home and dreading it awful, but Dad just looked at me like he thought that I was crazy as a loon, and didn't say anything about it. I never had another one of those.

There was a time when Dad let the older boys and a neighbor or two swap haircuts. The boys cut each others hair and you should have seen that mess. Sometimes we see the young guys nowadays and thier hairdoos and we wonder about thier sanity. Well, you should have seen the boys from Herman Junction. When one would get his hair cut and look at it in the mirror and see what had been done to him, he would get to cut the next guys hair and you know what he would do, don't you? Yes, that is what he did! After it was all over Dad tried to straighten it up so that it would not be so ugly and miserable for them but he couldn't do a real good job on them. Funny, I only remember that happening one time.

Dad spent about twenty or thirty years going to what we then called the, County Home, giving all the men thier haircuts. If he got paid at all it was about $1.00 per head and I don't think that he got paid all the time. He was faithful to go and cut the hair of these men who were unable to go to a barber shop. Someone said one time, "When Herb dies, I wonder if there will be anyone to cut his hair?" Well, there was someone who did it and I am glad that it wasn't a Mohawk. It was a fine flat top like he wore most of his life as he got older.

Hair cutting time at Herman Junction was probably a good time out under those mulberry trees or on the front porch for most people, but for me standing up in that chair it was not good at all. Maybe Mayor Linda will get a barber shop there someday and then everything will be just fine at Herman Junction.