Your Subtitle text
Kitchie's first haircut.
A rite of passage.
by Katherine Andes
"You sure got a pretty little girl, there," complimented a passerby in the Penney's parking lot.
"He's a boy,"
I tartly replied and immediately regretted. It wasn't the well-meaning
stranger's fault Kitchie's hair wisped angelic, framing a cherub face.
Inwardly, I resolved to call my hair stylist to arrange a haircut for
him. But for some reason I found myself stopping by a country
barbershop in the small one street town where my baby sitter lived.
Little
did I know as I entered that country barbershop that my two-year old
and I were stepping into the closest thing you will ever get to Floyd's
Barbershop from THE ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW.
It was
also like stepping into a forbidden world. The smells of masculine
tonics permeated the room which contained fat leather chairs with
skinny chrome arms and legs. Neatly stacked magazines were all
hunting, car or sports oriented. There were no Playboy's or even a
Sport's Illustrated Swimsuit Edition. I thus concluded that the barber
was of sturdy moral character. An enormous calendar featuring pictures
of every American President, from George to George, graced one wall and
on another wall hung an equally large copy of the Constitution of the
United States of America.
Eber
Coplin (yes, his name really is Eber) was dressed in Western shirt,
jeans, leather belt with big buckle and cowboy boots. In a great,
magnificent barber's chair, was a young man getting a
short-on-top-long-in-back haircut. Kitchie and I took our seats next
to a mature gentleman in mud-caked boots who sat patiently waiting his
turn.
The barber
finished the youth so the mature gentleman was next. As he took his
seat in the great chair and was suitably draped, Eber immediately began
trimming his hair. I marvelled that men don't get a shampoo first.
Shampoo's must be sissy or something. As I watched, the man told Eber
how his wife had really wanted him to get a new suit for the play they
were going to see in L.A. and he had told her, "Heck no, but I'll get a
haircut." They both laughed at the silliness of wives.
Quietly,
I whispered into Kitchie's ear about how handsome grown-up men look in
suits ... when suddenly, I was shocked by what happened next.
Eber put
his long, long scissors into the man's left ear and started snipping!
He was trimming the man's ear hairs! I was so embarrassed. Turning
away, I realized all in an instant that maybe I shouldn't be there.
How would I like it if a man was watching me get unwanted facial hairs
ripped off my face? (I don't get unwanted facial hairs waxed but if I
did, I wouldn't want a man observing.) Desperate for something to
turn my attention to, I rose and walked over to the Constitution -- the
giant one on the wall -- and began reading intently. At about Section
2 of Article 1, I peeked up and the barber was cutting the hair (on the
man's head) again. I snuggled my little boy pondering the incredible
certainty that he, too, would someday have ear hair.
Then it
happened. Eber put a comb to the guy's bushy eyebrows and began
trimming. This was too much. I was sure the poor man's nose would be
next. I don't know if Eber did the man's nose or not because I spent
the next few minutes introducing my son to Grover Cleveland and his
colleagues.
When Eber
was finished, the mature gentleman cheerfully surrendered the chair to
Kitchie wistfully saying, "I can still remember my first haircut as if
it had happened yesterday." I found it amazing to realize Kitchie
might remember this day.
I firmly
set Kitchie up in the booster Eber provided and as he whipped a plastic
apron around my small son's neck, the howling began. My son earnestly
bawled for the next ten minutes or so, yet I admired how he didn't try
to escape the chair. He took it, not like a man perhaps, but like a
little boy growing up to be a man. But, I am getting ahead of myself.
Eber asked me what kind of haircut I wanted. "A little boy's haircut," I replied.
"There
are several kinds of little boy haircuts," Eber patiently explained.
The descriptions that followed were beyond my comprehension; you see,
it seems that barbers use completely different terminology than other
hair stylists. At a loss, I asked, "Whatever you do, just make sure
it's layered in the back."
"Layering is a beauty shop term," Eber gently chided, "we call it blending."
"Okay, do that. Blending," I replied, while thinking, and they say women are hard to understand.
I must
say I was very impressed with the barber's steadiness of hand and nerve
as Kitchie furiously turned his head from one side to another. Eber
went right with it never missing a stroke.
As
Kitchie was being shorn of his angelic wisps, a friend of Eber's
stopped by. When the visitor saw Kitchie wailing away, he knowingly
smiled and reminisced, "It took both my dad and my older brother to
hold me down." Then the visitor did a strange thing. He approached my
sobbing little boy with his hand extended. "Gimme five, kid," he
gruffly said. Kitchie ceased his crying, and slapped the man's hand
returning the five. And then, with a wink and a smile to a bewildered
mom, Eber's friend left.
As
Kitchie resumed letting me know he was still displeased, I marveled at
the male ritual that had just taken place before my eyes. I didn't
know Kitchie knew about gimme fives!
I was
fascinated to realize that most men remember their first barbershop
haircuts even if they were very young at the time. (I certainly don't
remember my first beauty shop venture.) For some mysterious reason,
first barbershop haircuts for boys has been a real rite of passage. I
began to be very grateful that I didn't take Kitchie to the salon. If
we had gone to my regular hair stylist as I had first intended, Kitchie
would have had his hair cut by a woman, mostly women would have been
in the shop and there would have been virtually no distinction between
his experience versus his sister's. The trip to the barbershop
provided an opportunity for Kitchie to see what people of his own sex
(besides dad) look, sound and act like when they have grown up.
At last,
the haircut was finished. As I gathered my distressed son into my
arms, Eber began doing the necessary paperwork. He asked for Kitchie's
full name.
"William Kitchener Andes, but we call him Kitchie. William is after my husband, Kitchener after my dad," I offered.
Eber
carefully entered my son's name in a well-worn but neatly preserved
steno notebook. "I keep the names of all the boys I do first haircuts
of," he explained.
Next, he put
my son's name on another, most important, document: A CERTIFICATE OF
MANHOOD and presented it to me. I clutched the certificate as proudly
as a diploma while Kitchie happily clutched a lollipop.
When I
got home, I excitedly told my husband about Eber, brave little Kitchie,
the ear hairs, the "gimme five" and the notebook. My husband patiently
listened to me and then said, "Well, of course he cut the ear hairs, he
probably did the guy's nose hairs too."
Tickled
as I was to have experienced what is perhaps a last bastion of
untampered male preserve, I felt that my husband should take my son
next time. Barbershops are for men and I sense this will be a unique
opportunity for father-son bonding. Since I probably won't be going
back myself, I feel lucky to have glimpsed a bit of the habitat my son
will all too soon be a part of. My now soft baby will someday have
tougher skin, strong muscles and hair all over. It is likely that he
will laugh at the "silliness of wives" with other men.
Most of all, I realized that my son, unlike my daughter, will really be different than me.
My
two-year old's impending manhood and all that it entailed hit me hard
that day in the country barbershop. I got a glimpse of my son's future
world. It was a world at once so close, so far and so mysterious.
Copyright Katherine Andes
For more articles like this click here.
All Rights Reserved