The Barber Shops

There were only two barber shops I ever went to while I was growing up. The first was in a shop on the corner of Germantown Avenue and Logan Street a block up from the school and the church on the same side of the street. There was one chair and a tiny wizened old man doing the hair cutting.

This was my father's regular barber and I remember when he first began taking me and Tom with him to get a haircut. The barber had a wooden plank he would lay across the chair so kids could sit for their haircut. There was no TV and never any music in the shop. The only sound was the labored breathing of the old barber. I think my Dad liked it because there was never a wait for a haircut. The place was always empty and it was very cheap. Soon Tom and I were going there by ourselves after school. We went a lot because we always had very short hair.

In our early teens Tom and I revolted against going to the old barber and we convinced our parents to let us go somewhere else which was good because the old guy shut down his shop a year or so after we stopped going there. Our neighborhood had lots of barbershops scattered around and we decided to start going to Ralph's on Wayne Avenue between Seymour and Manheim streets.

Ralph's Barbershop was a lot different. This was a happening place. There were three barbers in there cutting hair all the time and even then there was always a little wait which was OK because it was like the local hangout. There were always guys in there having long conversations and watching a game. I can remember being in there on watching a World Series game back when they played day games even for the series.

Ralph and the other barbers were all very friendly guys who loved to chat while cutting your hair. They would talk and joke with you or with anybody who was in the shop at the time. It was always loud and kind of exciting. It was certainly different from the old man's shop we had been used to for so many years.

So I was going to Ralph's from about early 1965 until we moved in late 1968.  I did go a couple of more times in 1969 when I would drive down to Germantown for the day. I really don't remember any barbershop I went to in Harleysville but then of course I was getting my hair cut a lot less often and was soon sporting long hair at least for a little while before I went in the Navy.

Navy barbers were a whole different thing. I vividly remember getting that first haircut at the Naval Training Center in San Diego and the long line of recruits. Then it was regular haircuts for the next four years.

In 1974 I grew my hair long and if I needed a trim or styling I went to one of the new 70's unisex hair salons. A few years later in 1977 I decided to get my hair cut short and went back to Ralph's. It was a lot quieter than I had remembered and Ralph was working there alone. The neighborhood was changing and the other barbers were gone.  While sitting there getting my hair cut Ralph suddenly asked if he knew me. He remembered me. I told him about our family moving away, my years in the Nave and my eventual moving back to the old neighborhood. I became a regular at Ralph's for a couple of more years until we moved to Buffalo. I later learned that Ralph soon had moved his shop somewhere in the suburbs. 

I never really found a satisfying barbershop in Buffalo and bounced around with different ones until I finally settled on the chains. It certainly wasn't like the old days.

But now during this global pandemic I haven't been going out and getting a haircut. Nope, Becky cuts my hair and has done a good job.