I love taking photographs, but have forgotten to sometimes take them for myself too, not just for others.
So with this in mind, I started to think, “Just what childhood memory do I still enjoy now, as an adult, that I could perhaps turn into a photograph?”
My very early years growing up in northern Manitoba , was in a beautiful small town called Swan River, which many of you must know.
One small grown-up duty my father allowed me to do by myself, was walk to the downtown, (I was 6 years old), and get my haircut at the barber shop.
Not just any barber shop, but the one connected to that scary pool-hall where the grown-up boys hung out. I was sure curious about what went on behind those heavy swinging doors, but was too terrified to find out. Some day maybe.
But my enjoyment was the treatment by that kind barber, who knew my Dad, and cut his hair all the time too. Just sometimes I was allowed to go by myself, that’s if Dad didn’t give me the “Buck” haircut himself. Four of us brothers were recognizable from 50 yards just because of our father’s haircuts when he had the chance.
The barber shop was an endlessly curious place I found. That high-hard barber chair, onto which I had to climb higher yet, onto a booster board. How embarrassing. The chair itself was an engineering feat, polished chrome, hydraulics, and ornate metal work. You would almost hiccup when the chair handle pumped and the seat raised you higher up like an old car jack.
The counter was lined with colored bottles with exotic liquids, one-of-which was wiped on my tender neck after the straight razor cleaned me up some right. Oh the panic waiting for the sting of that Barbasol!
Combs, brushes, powder brushes, shaving cream mugs, and assorted electric hair clippers lined up like surgeons tools. The barber’s pole humming and spinning, fooling you to watch the ribbon disappear everytime up the top.
I remember telling him we were moving. I remember even more, what he did next. He disappeared over to another shop counter, came back, and put a shiny object in my hand.
“What’s this?”, I asked him completely confounded.
“Well, just a little going away present for you to help keep up your fine grooming habits.” He was fibbing, about the grooming.
It was all chrome shinny like the chair, and the first pair of nail clippers I had ever seen. What a kind gift for a little guy. I still remember the feel in my hand as I curled my fingers around it, some forty-six years ago.
Funny the little things we remember. But from 1977-2008, I had my hair cut by many barbers. You’d hardly know now if you saw me, but that’s another chapter.
Almost every haircut since, I would drift back in the chair to Swan River, and those grown-up visits to the barber shop.
So where is this all going? You guessed it. I’ve started making the rounds to local barber shops in Winnipeg. Hoping to find the master barber, and the old characters who sit and share repeated stories with him day-after-day. And hopefully he will allow me to take a few photographs, and share a few stories with an admirer of the “local barber shop”.
Maybe you will visit one someday, if you don’t already. You should, as they are starting to dwindle away.
You could say, the local barber knows many a man to the heart, and has shared much with them all. If you needed to know something, the barber was one remarkable resource. He always had an answer for you.
So with this, I hope to record photographically at least, some of the last remaining barber shops, some historical as you will see, as they slowly give way to fast moving salons and trends of the next generations.
Strange though, there sure are a lot of short haired men getting $45 styles, that could be had for $12, and a story traded with the locals as they watch your locks waft to the floor.
