Howard and Dave's Barbershop

Max got his first haircut in a long time today.
He's been wanting Jimmy Neutron hair, which sticks up about a foot, and what with one thing and another, it's been a long time. Pursuing the Neutron Style, we did find that the Plaid Pantry carries hair gel. The woman there was surprised, but it's true. Smells like grape.
Lisa did touch it up a little while ago, but his bangs have been in his eyes for weeks.

We went down to Howard and Dave's Barbershop on Cowls street, mostly because every morning when we ride our bikes to school, Max weaves in between them on the sidewalk as they're opening up their shop to start their day. They always smile and crack some comment.

The shop is great. Comfortable. Two old-fashioned chairs and some smart-ass regulars.

This was Max's first time in a grown-up barbershop, and he didn't like the idea of no video games. In practice, though, he looked through a car magazine and bantered with the guys. Got some gum from the machine. Pretty fun.

I liked it, too. I've never gotten a professional haircut in my whole life.
As a child, my mom cut my hair to much wailing and crying, which turned into mean comments as I got older, and finally culminated in No More Haircuts. I had a friend cut my hair in college, but she exactly cut off the part I told her to keep (the Bozo undergrowth that supported the straight hair on top). She was totally acting in my best interest ('get Philip laid'), but my hair was never designed to be long. Too lank. Next was midnight head-shavings at Nine Gables, with friends, housemates and mohawks. Finally, my friend Molly cut her own hair, and told me "you've GOT to cut your own hair! It's SO FUN!" It was fun, and I did a pretty good job of it, but how hard is a mohawk, really?

That reminds me of a story I heard in the barbershop. The subject of 'myths' came up, and one of them insisted that the "famous story" of some loggers from one of the local mills cutting a hippie's hair with a chainsaw was a true story, and cost the mill owner "a lot of money." A crew was coming back from work and passed a hippie on the road ("a real long hair"), and that was too good to pass up, so they buzzed him so close he had to jump in the ditch. He come up out the ditch and let fly with a one-fingered wave, "and those guys nearly turned that thing over backing up so fast". They jumped out, held him down and cut his hair off with a chainsaw.
Ow. About half of us thought that must've just pulled the hair out in chunks, but some thought it could've been done cleanly, if they held the hair on both sides. The noise and the terror, though, must've been awful.

Reminds me of the time me and my hippie friends were driving around and came across a logger alone in the woods. We almost ran him down, then jumped on him and superglued a big blonde wig to his head.

Nothing like that happened to Max, though. He got a great haircut, which took twice as long as anyone else's, but cost less. Go figure. Probably because just about the time Dave was finishing up with the cut, I said "don't be afraid to cut it short - we never comb it," so he went over the whole thing again, making it shorter. Two haircuts, but he only charged for one.

Really enjoyable experience.