The Decline of the Barbershop

Note: I first wrote this piece for the Amsterdam (NY) Recorder back in the 1980s. Since that time Amsterdam has lost several more barbershops.

Ring Lardner ends his famous story, Haircut, with the question. "Comb it wet or dry?" I have had this same question presented to me dozens of times since Pete Pappalardo cut my hair for the first time in the little sleepy hollow of Sidney Center, New York. Price $1.00.

Very few decisions have caused me as much consternation as whether or not to have my hair sprayed with whatever it is that barbers spray on your remaining hair. Being naturally indecisive, I would often hem and haw whenever the barber asked, and finally murmur timidly "wet, I guess." After getting my hair cut in January and then walking home, I finally became decisive enough to have it left dry in the winter.

"Wet or dry" is a phrase that will fade from the English language, just as barbershops have been giving way to hair salons, beauty parlors, unisex parlors and other shops with more efficient ways of relieving a man of his hard earned money.My two sons have never heard the words "wet or dry" because they go with their mother to get their hair cut. Whey they go to high school, and if they read Haircut, there will have to be a footnote to explain the meaning of "wet or dry."

Today we are all concerned about the equality of the sexes. Why then have I never seen a woman in a barbershop, either behind the chair or in the chair? Occasionally, I have seen a woman drop off her son and then return later to pick him up. When I first realized how sexist our barbershops were, I was greatly concerned.

Why hadn't Senator Kennedy held hearings on the matter? Why was Gloria Steinem so quiet? Why hadn't equality in barbershops become part of some party's platform?

It didn't take me long to figure out why NOW hadn't taken on our American barbershops? First, unlike other all male social clubs, barbershops are not places where big financial deals are made or sales territories carved out. Barbers are simply not power brokers.

Secondly, a separate but unequal system already exists whereby the barbershops come in second to the predominantly female beauty shops. There is no question in my mind about which does the better job. The one time that I slipped up and went to one of those places, I came home with the best haircut I have ever had.

If beauty salons do a better job, why do some men continue to go to the barbershop?

If you ever go to the Norman Rockwell museum in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, take a close look at Rockwell's painting, Shuffleton's Barbershop. Considered by some critics

to be one of Rockwell's finest works, Shuffleton's Barbershop catches the warmth of human fellowship that is so often missing from many other modern business establishments as well.

Pete Pappalardo's shop gave its customers a sense of security and well-being. It was a place where the pace of modern life came to a standstill, and men could participate in one of the oldest and most important forms of entertainment, talking with one another.

Pete's shop lacked the wood stove and the barbershop quartet that Rockwell portrays, but everything else was there. It was hard for Pete to make a living cutting hair in a village where the dogs and cows outnumbered the people. If the Census Bureau were to comb all the back roads, it might tabulate 500 people.

The front of Pete's shop contained a big glass case filled with knives, watches and other items. There was also a candy case. Selling these items helped Pete stretch his budget a little.Pete has been dead for years now. He was an old man when I was a kid. Almost all barbers are old men. Where I live now, there are only about one quarter of the barbers there were thirty years ago. Soon the symbol of the barber shop, the candy-striped pole, will be missing from the main streets of America. It will become a relic of an era that will only exist in memory and history books.

I am sentimental to the point that I will miss the revolving stripes, but realistic enough to know that change is inevitable. Death and taxes are not the two things we must all face. Although no one escapes death, some manage to avoid paying taxes. It is death and change that we all must deal with, and now that we have entered the 21st Century, change is taking place at space shuttle speed.

It is our memory of things past, like the barber shop, that keeps us from getting vertigo.