Childhood Memories, the Barbershop

[Jamie001]

The Barbershop was a bad childhood memory. My mother or father would take me to the Barbershop and I knew that I just didn't belong there! I felt like a fish out of water in that sterile, masculine hell hole where everyone tries to act macho.

Too bad I didn't discover beauty salons at that young age. I would have loved it. Did anyone else feel absolutely "wrong" as a child in the Barbershop?

[sterling12]

In my youth, it was The Old Man who took me to The Barber Shop. No Stylists back then and usually The Barber's name was Ben or Sal, or something like that.

The Old man was paying for that haircut....he wanted to get his money's worth. EVERY TIME, I can remember those famous words: "Take it right down as close as you can go; I don't want him to look like a sissy!"

Well, Pater got value for his 75 cents. No scissors cut for me! No styling....no nothin'. Ben would get out the electric clippers and I would end up looking like The First Week of Boot Camp! They used to have a razor strop hanging from the arm of The Barberchair. That was there so they could put a good edge on the straight razor they used around your ears. You would sport a 3/4 inch bare area all around the ear....we used to call the effect, "having whitewalls." If your a kid and your ears stick out just a bit, everybody will call you Jughead!

Oh, how I hated those outings. Oh, how I longed to have my blond hair styled and curled. Didn't happen....now I'm bald in the back, but I do finally have a number of cool wigs. Now I can have a style for my hair any way I want it.

Peace and Love, Joanie

[jozee]

my barbershop was in the basement until i was 16+. my dad was the barber and HE decided when we needed a haircut, and how (VERY) short it was cut. i even remember getting a haircut one year on christmas day. a lump of coal would have been better!

[Sapphire]

This may seem like a light hearted post - but it is probably quite significant. In childhood I recall a similarly strong dislike for the barbershop right from the start. Nature or nurture? I think on this one nature seems to have taken a lead role. The first barbershop visit may have been the first test for many transgendered males - long before puberty and long before we had had even heard the words transvestite or crossdresser. Well done on raising this issue.

[Mydia]

Hated getting my hair cut. It looked like crap >_>

Finally when I was 13 after YEARS of fighting it my parents gave in and let me leave it long. Now I only trim it about an inch once or twice a year to get rid split ends and keep it healthy and pretty.

[Julogden]

I always hated it. I remember crying when I was little when it was time to go the barber shop. My mother would drop me off and I was on my own in an ultra-macho setting that I hated. Seemed like it was always full of dirty old men smoking cigars. To this day, the smell of a cigar brings back bad memories of those days.

Carol

[Emily Anderson]

I used to hate having my hair cut as a young child!

However, I actually enjoyed going to the barber in my early teens, because he had Playboy magazines to peruse while waiting. No joke!

Later on (early adulthood) and nowadays of course, I go to a stylist.

[Nikki A.]

My grandfather was a barber in a YMCA, so I traveled to the city to get my hair cut. He was an awful barber but he made great hot plate burgers. Thankfully he retired before I hit my teens in the 60's.
To this day if there was a relative that I might confide in, it would have been him. He was a great man, too bad he died before I turned 18 (he was in his 90's).

[TracyH]

For some reason my mom would just take a pair of scissors and chop the front and the back of my hair off when it started getting into my eyes. The sides were left to fall wherever. Even though she didn't know how to cut hair, she figured this approximated a "boy's haircut". Yes, it looked as stupid as it sounds.

[trannie T]

My old barbershop was a classic. The barbers were Clarence who was a friend of the family and along with my dad was a volunteer fireman, Mr. Knudsen who was an institution there and a third who would come and go. There was a good supply of magazines, a stuffed deer head on the wall and a big poster of a local businessman holding a huge salmon at a fishing derby. The barbershop closed long ago, about the same time I lost interest in getting haircuts.
I went back to my hometown last year and drove by the old barbershop. Of course the barbershop was long gone but just next to where it had been is now a beauty salon. I was going to a meeting of a support group in a few days so I decided to ask if they would do my makeup. They eagerly agreed and I returned on the appointed day in my dress. They spent quite a bit of time getting my makeup right and all of us had a good time and I looked quite good when they were done. As much as I may have enjoyed the old barbershop I think I prefer the new beauty parlor.