barbershops

Hope and Haircuts

November 20, 2008

Two barbershops, fifty years and three thousand miles apart.

At one I had my first haircut without a parent in tow. It was in Florida, and I was a young boy new to the South. The father and son proprietors were Alabama crackers. The only time they spoke more than a few words was when talk turned to farming. They grew corn outside my small town of Maitland. I could tell they wanted to be with their crop rather than mess with other people’s hair.

What I remember most was their only employee, a black kid about my age who swept up hair. We often exchanged glances that felt like long conversations between occupants of different worlds. Read More

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