To put things in perspective…

The soldier needs a barber of course so we used the usual method to find one, we drove to Ace Hardware to ask someone in there where a barber could be found. We got a good tip from a cop who was shopping there and headed over to find the shop closed on Monday. This morning we went back.

It was a glorious barber shop – it has all the trappings. A barber up front named, Enrique, some vintage posters of men’s hair cuts on the walls, a display or vintage blades and scissors and lots and lots of military and/or sports banner hanging down.

There is a discussion on one of the mailing lists right now regarding beauty salons and someone pointed out that while a salon is Venus ruled, a barber shop is a Mars establishment and if you go in to one there is no mistaking this fact.  In whatever case, if there were any doubt we were in the right place the two barbers (the other is a woman but not insane like the New Mexico barber) were talking about astrology. Yep.

“He’s a Taurus too.”

“No, he’s an Aries he said.”

The soldier waited for his haircut and I waited with him. There was another man waiting and meanwhile another man walked in, he was older.

Soon the soldier was called by the woman barber and soon after that the other man was called by Enrique.

“Looks like you lost a few pounds,” Enrique said.

“Yes, I have cancer,” the man said.

“Where?” the barber asked.

“Prostate,” the man said. He went on to outline his condition in graphic fashion while the barber listened and cut his hair. The rest of the shop continued on their conversations quietly showing respect and deference to the man and his illness.

Sitting in the front of the shop, I spilled a couple tears for the man but just as much for my own appreciation of men.  These men (some of them) have a place they go and it’s called the barber shop.

The rules are well and widely known – walk in, wait your turn, don’t bitch, pay the barber (cash) and if at all possible tip him.  If you don’t tip it, it’s because you are poor and starving which is okay but there is no other acceptable reason and the man who was ill?

Well he was ill but by God, he could still go see the barber, get his hair cut like a man.