Floyd The Barber

I don’t remember the name of the barber that cut my hair in the summer of 1970. It wasn’t Pete. Pete was my regular barber, but he was away. It probably wasn’t Floyd. He didn’t listen to me when I told him how I wanted my hair cut. He interrupted me. He was very nasty, cut my hair too short. I spent the entire summer feeling bad about my hair. No 13 year old in 1970 wanted his hair to be short. In August I went with my family to Minneapolis. I bought a copy of Let It Be, an American copy with a red Apple label on it (the Canadian pressings had a green apple). I felt bad listening to it, because my hair was too short.

My barber’s name is Norma, and I’m betting that she’s a hair stylist, not a “barber.” She talks to me when she cuts my hair, and she cuts it how I like it.

Pete was ok but he was allergic to hair. His place was called Scissors Inn. (It’s still there.) He wore a mask because of his allergy. It seemed odd that someone with a hair allergy should become a barber, but it seems that his allergy developed from his occupation. He worked with a couple of other guys, and they had contests and magazines. The contests were you put your name on a paper, and they put the paper in a box, and once a month someone would win a scale model. One month I won a model of Quasimodo. The magazines were Playboy. They probably had others. I remember a mother reading one. She had a small boy with her, who presumably was the haircut patron. “Look,” she said to the small boy, pointing to something in the magazine. “Wow,” said the boy, glaring at something in Playboy. “I’ve never seen that before!” They both stared for a while. I worked very hard at surreptitiously finding out whether they were looking at a blonde or a brunette.

They were looking at a double page spread of sports cars.

When Pete left town, though, I got stuck with the evil barber on McGregor. He plays a part in my psyche to this day.

I outgrew Pete and ended up with Sal. He was at Garden City and eventually opened his own place. Last time I saw Sal, he was whining about his life to one of his colleagues. I didn’t enjoy that haircut. That’s why it was the last time I saw Sal.

I lived in haircut wilderness for a while until I found Pat. Pat, short, presumably, for Patrick, not Patricia, not only cut my hair how I liked it, but he had a perfect length beard. So I’d say trim it like yours and voila! Perfect beard.

The Greek barber near the IGA asked about my beard. ¼ inch I told him. He made it ¼ of ¼ of an inch. You could see parts of my face that had been hidden since I was 18. You have a fat face, said my second son. He didn’t use those exact words. What he actually said was something like you look different. But I knew what he meant.

I do my own beard now.

I’m happy with Norma the hairdresser. She asks me about my life, about my kids, about the holidays that are invariably coming up. There are always holidays coming up. She isn’t too chatty. She isn’t too quiet. She doesn’t whine. She doesn’t thrash what’s left of my hair to within a micron of its life.

The call came at about 3:00 PM one typical workday. “Are you interested in new opportunities? We have a position downtown.” It was a local headhunter. “No.” I said. “I’m very happy here,” I said. After all, I don’t want to lose Norma the hairdresser…