Thread: Digging through my shoebox of photos, results in a trip down memory lane.....

I lucked upon a couple of photos of my dad. I still have half a shoebox to go, but I'm not that hopeful I'll find any photos of my dads original barbershop in Winnipeg.

What I did find was a photo dating back to the 1945-1950 period after the war, when my dad worked in a barber shop in Norway (most likely Oslo). My dad is the second from the right in this black and white photo (short and balding.... I inherited the balding bit)... I see the smocks were a tad longer back then!

The color photo (well faded of course, but it still scanned) is from the inside of my dads last barbershop that he owned. The time period would be somewhere around 1960 to 1965 and while the building this was in, is still there, it has been part of an Italian restaurant for many years and the glass doors/windows were replaced some 4 or 5 years ago. My dad has the #1 chair so he is closest to window. It doesn't show in that picture, but there were strops hanging on the right hand side of those chairs, and I recall there were ashtrays built into the armrests that could be pulled out by the customer.

These photos are not exactly straight razor related I guess, but I did get a kick out of finding them and thought I would share. I hope I picked the right section of the forum to post them.







Regards

Christian

They look great & they are in the right section of the forum. Thank you for sharing them.

Originally Posted by Hirlau

They look great & they are in the right section of the forum. Thank you for sharing them.

+ 1 ! Great stuff

Very cool! How about those 'George Jetson' barber-chairs!
You can tell that shop was top-notch in it's day.

Thanks for sharing!

The barber chairs I used to sit when I was a child (late seventies, early eighties) were more or less the same model. I remember - don't know why - the chromed tubes, the chromed big piece were the head rest was fitted when necessary, and the cast trellis footrest. My brain is, right now, remembering the smell of the barber shop. Those things were made to last.
Thank you for bring back this memories!

It's funny, for many, the barber shop was a near magical place. The sights, smells and such were part of most mens upbringing.

As for my dads last barber shop... I spent many an hour waiting for closing time, reading the comics that were placed on the tables for young customers.

Saturdays were particularly painful for a young chap like myself. Mom would bring me to the shop where we would wait for closing and the entire shop would get washed down. Supper would be later than normal as mom would of course be helping dad with the cleaning. Often, I would be sent next door to a Henny Penny fried chicken restaurant to eat my supper so it wouldn't be so late.

I think the most straight razor related thing I can think of is that I would always ask my dad if he would cut my hair with a straight razor! For some reason, the slight tug of the razor felt really good.... perhaps that's why I've picked up the straight razor habit? Dad, being old school... preferred to not use scissors for some reason, though he did use the thinning sheers and clippers. I think he said you could see a scissor haircut a mile away... the razor would layer the hair smoother and you would not see the cuts a scissor left behind.

In any case, I remember the cruel joke he would play on an unsuspecting young lad who was getting a haircut for the first time. He'd go over to the latherking machine and make some lather and offer a "taste" of warm ice cream to the unsuspecting young fellow... These lads would never fall for that one twice!

Matheus mentioned the scent in these barber shops. I have a 14oz bottle of Booster "Polar Ice" aftershave. It has been made in Canada since 1920 and I'm instantly transported back to dads barbershop whenever I crack it open. It really is funny how a scent can trigger long ago memories.

If I find any more photos of interest, I'll post them in this thread.


Regards

Christian

That is so cool, and thank you so much for sharing. That is why I love straight shaving, or wet shaving, the nostalgia!!

It's not much, but I found a piece of scrap paper dad had used for testing a new stamp. I don't remember ever seeing it and I almost threw it out as one side was blank!

Well, I didn't find a single photo of the outside of either of dads shops.... I really wish I'd found one from his first shop on Portage Ave in Winnipeg, but alas... nope. Nothing in the historical archives of Winnipeg either. Hudson's Bay store was right across Portage Ave where my dad had his first barber shop with 6 chairs.... a situation with the other barbers who were employees ended up with the employees buying the shop from him and he went and started his second shop. The first shop went bankrupt about a year later... If anything, dad knew how to keep things going. Mind you, the long hair fashion of the early 60s did cut severely into the business that relied on that 3 weeks between haircuts model.

So I did find two more interior photos, the first from his original shop in black and white, the second was a view from the opposite side of the shop shown in the first post, and this time you can see Walter's strop hanging at the back of the chair.

That could have been me in the second chair, if I had lived in Canada. Since I was reared in Kentucky, it must have been my doppelgänger. Until I was 15, every two to three weeks I visited my barber to get mt flattop refreshed. I loved final trim when the barber got a handful of lather from the machine and used a straight to clean up the hair line. A bit of bay rum rubbed on my head, and, I was ready to sally forth and break hearts (note the bit of teenage fantasy pathos).