Our little town sported three barbers and while notexactly a union, they all agreed to work on Saturdays and agreed to take Thursdays off so as not to undermine the others business.

Barbers were chosen for any number of good and practical reasons. Every guy knew that climbing the well worn wooden stairs up to Roger Olmsted’s Barber Shop on the second floor above the old granite faced Merrill Bank on the north side of Main street was worth it because he had Playboy magazines on display to peruse while waiting for a Saturday morning haircut. Alas girly magazines was not the reason that decided my first barber. The reason fell on the practical side of the spectrum. Since Lloyd Wood lived next door to us on Spring Street, our parents chose our first barber for us. Lloyd’s shop was on Grove Street just beyond the IGA alongside the Amos Abbott parking lot. A third barber was available downtown on Main Street, Charlie Tremblay’s on the opposite side of Main Street next to the Park Theatre. I chose Charlie later because he told dirty jokes and retold familiar family stories long forgotten by most others. I liked the ever smiling be-speckled Charlie. His yellow tobacco stained hands reminded me of my grandfather. Jeez who wouldn’t like a guy that reminded you of your grandfather, told dirty jokes and ran at least two different Pool Halls in his life time.

BC (before Charlie). In the days of crew-cuts and butch wax Lloyd Wood cut my brother Alan and my hair. While the going price was fifty cents, Lloyd only charged us forty-five cents. He gave us back a nickel for candy from the silver half dollars that paid for the grooming. Saying:

“Don’t spend it all in one place.”

All three barber shops had the requisite walled mirrors lined with Bryle Crème, Wild Root, Bristol Crème, and other smell-um hair tonics along with cardboard displays of plastic combs. They all hummed with thefamiliar buzz of electric trimmers and the click click click of sterile scissors and the ever-present thick leather razor strop that shish shushed razor edges, while chrome and black leather seated barber chairs swiveled customers in a circle and striped cover sheets were snapped around youthful necks preventing clipped hair from clinging to Gene Autry sweatshirts. I was always creeped out by the hot shaving lather on the back of my neck and the straight razor that applied the final trim thinking that one slip and ugh-blood. Just like the symbol on the barber pole. And yes I realize that there arguably was a forth barber Chopper Chapman on the corner of Rail Road Avenue and Liberty Street. But he opened shop much later and wasn’t called chopper for nothing. Different tale
Fred