Thread: Banning the Pole

Originally Posted by sharptonn

Yep. You cannot leave em outside anymore or someone will steal them. I have read where they evolved from just red stripes which signified blood running down an arm from the days when barbers were also "bloodletters". I suppose it is no longer "PC" to have them. That's why I have my own to look at!

My Grandfather had an old barbers chair in the back room of his Barbershop. He came from the "Old Country (Italy) by way of Cuba after WWI.

In a drawer in the back he keep a collection of spring operated lancets. The older men would come in, speak to him and then go let themselves in to the back room and wait for Grandpa to come back.

He only stopped bleeding in the 50's when my Aunt went to Nursing school. She explained to him that there was no way to effectively clean and sterilize the inside of the "spring box" after use.
Since he was very serious about sanitation (way ahead of his time, they would deliver Listerine to his house by truck...) he stopped immediately and refused to ever do it again. But this is the same man who gave up driving one day by placing his car keys and license on the counter and announcing that he was done driving in his late 70's. (A blessing, he was the worst driver on the planet, running the gas and brakes like a pump organ - we have always assumed he had a real scare that day)

BTW the bowl at the bottom of the pole represents the bleeding bowl. Those macaroni shaped stainless steel containers you used to see in the hospital had the same origin. They would press the inside curve against the back of your neck to catch the flow, cutting below your hairline on one side of the back of your neck for instance.

Barbers were also the dentists...a prospect that should make you shudder. I believe that is what the "white" in the pole signifies.

Sadly we don't know what happened to any of his kit....I'm still looking and asking.