Only Wonder Grasps Anything

a (new) old barber shop

I got a haircut this morning.

One of the elders at my church recommended a old fashioned barber shop to me, and when I walked in I felt like I had stepped into a scene from growing up. We used to go with our Grandpa to the barber shop where he go his hair cut, and the folks there all knew each other and kept up in each other's lives. At the shop today, it seemed that everybody waiting was a regular, and they were visiting and talking.

A little boy, three or four years old, was crying and sucking his fingers as he sat in the barber's chair and had his blonde hair cut. He apparently didn't like the the noise the trimmer made, because when the barber switched to using sissors, he stopped crying, calmed down, and even started trying to turn around to see himself in the mirror. Then, while his dad was getting his hair cut, the little boy wandered over the the old fashioned cash register and was trying to punch the buttons and pull the lever to open the drawer (with probably no idea what the drawer was for). He didn't suceed, but did knock a pile of buisness cards down onto the floor when he grabbed the "Haircut: $7.00" sign. "Uh oh!" he cried to his papa.

As the barber was cutting my hair, I commented to him about the little boy apparently not enjoying his haircut, and he said, "I forgot to ask him if he wanted his hair cut; these days the little guys have to want a haircut or else the cry..." I found out that my barber was a highschool classmate of the elder who recommended I try the barber shop.

It seemed that the two differences between the barber shop this morning and the one growing up with grandpa were that grandpa wasn't there with me, and the folks here had southern accents instead of Delaware accents.