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Dalton
Roberts |
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Did you see that TV news feature about barbers
in the Middle East bragging on their customers? It convinced me that our
barbers are shortchanging us. The report said it is a custom for Middle East
barbers to lather on praise even as they lather the face, neck and ears.
I mean, they pour it on. It showed this guy coming in for a haircut and
his barber began telling him how strikingly handsome he was. I’ve been
going to Keith Woods at Mike and Weldon’s Tonsorial Salon and Picking
Parlor on Hixson Pike for years and never once has he told me how
good-looking I am. He may have mentioned something about how much less
hair he had to cut now that it is thinning but really now, is that a
compliment? Am I going to have to fly to Jordan to get a compliment on
my looks? Keith doesn’t just slight me. There are other
handsome gentlemen who come there for haircuts and they have told me
that he never tells them how good they look. Not even Johnny Wright. He has some beautiful lady customers. In
researching this article, I inquired about how much bragging they get
from Keith. Fabulous Funky Faye has one of the prettiest, sweetest faces
I have seen and gorgeous milk-colored skin but has he ever said a word
about her beauty? Not one time. She says, “He brags about playing with
Buck Turner and the Town and Country Boys and reminisces about
possum-hunting. That’s about it. I am going to Iran for my next
haircut.” The Middle East barbers even bragged on the
customer’s family. Something like, “Ah, not only is he strikingly
handsome, his father was a majestic man and his mother looked like a
queen. How could he be anything less than those who formed him and gave
him life?” In all these years as a faithful customer, Keith has never
told the assembled haircutters and haircutees what great blood flows
through my veins. He just snip-snips, chews his gum and pushes his
glasses back on his nose. I am sick and tired of him ignoring my mama
and daddy. One of those Middle East barbers held up the
hands of a customer and said, “I ask you, are these the hands of a
great artist? I tell you that this man paints pictures that take away
the breath! Such landscapes of grandeur, such incredible detail, such
soul stirring colors. Never have I seen such an artist walking among
men. And with great humility of heart does he walk. An artist for the
ages!” I can get witnesses that Keith has never held my
hands up one time and bragged on my picking. No telling how many times I
have played “Why You Been Gone So Long” for him and not once has he
said, “Look here, you amateur guitar-flogging fools, at the hands of a
master!” The closest thing I’ve got to a compliment from him was,
“If some good singer recorded it you might have something with that
gay dog song.” Another thing I really liked about those Middle
East barbers was the way they circled their customers as they lavished
praise on them. They didn’t just grab the scissors and start ripping
hair. They had finesse, class and style. They put the spotlight on the
customer. How I would like to be circled by something other than a
buzzard just one time in my life. Barbershops are not the most exciting places in
the world. I think that’s why most men have to be threatened with the
loss of employment to go there. That’s why shops have to have things
like jam sessions to get people to sit down and listen to the boring hum
of a hair mower. Isn’t it ridiculous that we’re going to have
to move to the Middle East to get a kind word from our barbers? I’ll
miss the jam sessions.
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