Remembrances of the Barbershop
Gentlemen,
I wished Medic484, in another thread, good luck in his schooling to become a real barber.
I have always considered real barbering a noble profession and the real barbershop the center of the universe. No, I myself am not a barber; rather, I am a writer and a former radio announcer. Anyway. . .
That post gave me an idea to start a new thread about personal barbershop stories. I am sure you have many of your own. By barbers I mean real barbers, those who cleaned the sideburns with a straight razor, and shaved with a straight razor, topping the performance with a splash of Pinaud's Lilac Vegetable or Clubman.
One of the many barbers I visited through the years loved opera. He sang beautiful arias from "La Traviata," "La Boheme," "Turandot" and a string of other great operas. He had a sweet and powerful tenor voice and I loved hearing him as he worked the scissors with the skill of a champion swordsman in a Raphael Sabatini novel.
The only time I would have preferred the curtain closed was when he belted out his arias with the straight razor in his hand. Now and then he would stop the shave or the cleanup and sweep an emphatic arms in the air. It scared the daylight out of me.
Ah, but my visits to that barbershop have left me with sweet memories of a lost art.
Regards,
Obie