Personal childhood memoir by Glori L’Ecuyer, June 1981. The unnamed governor is not identified by inference.
My braids–no, they were never so dignified—my pigtails flopped around my face and stray hairs forever floundered from the plaits my mother vainly secured with rubber bands. Only the bangs looked meticulously groomed.
Even if I tried to push them back or to the side, they returned, cascading to perfect order. Ride a bike, run, let sweat stream down and paste hair to my face–the bangs hung always in an even row.
This order amid disarray was the work of the silver snippers of my father’s barber.
Not many girls I knew went to the barber.
No girls I knew.
The monthly Saturday trips caused me both consternation and delight. I would have to bear the remarks of my schoolmates who could plainly see where I had been, but I loved to go bumming around with my dad.
The barbershop was only part of our day together.
The rest of the afternoon would be spent at the hardware store, the lumber yard, or maybe the local greenhouse, all places with warm smells and hundreds of things to talk about.
My father could answer any question I could ask.
He knew everything, but he needed me on those trips.
I was good at finding the right bolt in the conglomeration of bins at the hardware store. I could spot the knot on a 2 x 4 he was about to buy.
The barbershop was in the far corner of the lobby of one of the hotels that served the legislators who came to our small capitol city weekdays for their important sessions. Glass partitions enclosed the shop, revealing undistinguished tones of gray and green that echoed the sedate decor of the legislative corridors.
On Saturday afternoons the shop was almost always empty. I entered this man’s sanctuary during off hours, escorted by my father.
My young nose always reacted to the pungent aroma, a blend from the bottles that lined the shelf on the mirrored wall mixed with the scent of cigars and Camel cigarettes.
The shop had three well padded barber chairs with comfortable headrests and chrome foot rails.
They were fine to twirl in while waiting your turn. And I waited in style, with lollipops and chewing gum to ameliorate the pain I would soon endure.
I was called “Miss” or “Young Lady” by the proprietor, a blue eyed, graying man whose odor and appearance conformed perfectly with his shop.
He always began the ritual of the bangs cutting with the same admonishment. “Now hold still and keep your head up, Young Lady.” He let me watch in the mirror as he draped the mansized apron around me and tucked tissue in my collar, a gesture intended to keep the clippings out, but seemed rather to guide them in. Then he would swing my back to the mirror and I was completely at his mercy, while my father calmly read a magazine or chatted with the barber about baseball and other man-things. Comb, snip, cut, comb as the bangs diminished and the tell-tale neatness of the barber’s touch appeared.
The cutting ended.
I was powdered and swished with a soft talcumed broom just like any other customer and let down from my perch. “There you go, Young Lady.” I quickly escaped to the lobby where I bought a copy of “Little Lulu” or “Wonder Woman” to read while I waited for my father.
One Saturday, like many others, we went uptown for our haircuts. I casually walked into the shop and climbed aboard my favorite chair while my father hung up his hat and jacket.
So used was I to owning the place, I had failed to notice someone else coming to sit in the chair.
My father greeted the man warmly while casting me a look of chagrin over his wire rims.
His face told me I was distinctly out of order. Jellylike, I slid from the chair to be properly introduced to the individual I had so carelessly slighted.
The gentleman was the governor, the Governor of the State of Missouri. “How-do-you-do?” I managed.
He smiled.
Even as a child I could sense his amused condescension, yet he seemed gracious as he resigned his chair in my favor.
My father smiled. I took my turn.
The Governor and my father waited.
The next day, or sometime very soon, my friend and I shared the pink stool in front of her mother’s vanity. Haircuts that took precedence over the trimming of the Governor’s hair was the topic of conversation. My friend wanted to see my bangs close up.
We sat looking in the mirror for a sweet long time, and I demonstrated the great power of my barbershop bangs to be pushed back and then fall into place over and over.
Originally published in The Paper, June 1981.
Read this article in the original newspaper issue.
Original source: SD_Times1981_06.pdf, printed page(s) 5; PDF page(s) 5.
