Just a Little Off the Sides (Fourth in a Series)

Haircuts were very simple during the 1950s and 60s.

They came every week regardless of the need. You could pay 25 cents for a regular cut or 50 cents for a flattop – and not blow-dried. Or you could get a free buzz cut – at home – depending on whether or not dad had made enough money at Vossen’s Sinclair filling station or Harrison’s Dry Cleaners.

The flat tops were the most popular. Why? Maybe it was the hair oil, or more appropriately axle grease, that gave guys an automatic “macho” appearance. Maybe it was the smell of the Butch Wax that turned the girls on, or maybe everyone would think you were a football player or a Marine.

I wanted a flat top for two reasons: My all-time favorite football player, University of Oklahoma halfback Tommy McDonald – number 25 in your program – had a flat top (as did most of the football players of that era, thank you); and my best friend at school, Michael Amann, had one. Michael and I also wanted to go to West Point and, of course, we were halfway there with a flat top. In our eyes, the other half of the U.S. Military Academy prerequisite, the West Point jacket, already was purchased. Hell, we were almost plebes!

Peer pressure and machismo notwithstanding, my flat top always needed the axel grease because my hair was not course or thick. It was as fine as silk on a corn stalk. My thin follicles were more suited for the regular cut or the home chop shop. As far as the flat top went, I never could understand the reasoning behind the increase in price for depriving you of fewer hairs. Today, men pay 10,000 times that amount just to get hairs put back on their heads. Oh well.

My dad had his favorite barbershop. It was on Southeast 15th Street, about 10 minutes or three stop signs away. Traffic lights were meant just for the big city – Oklahoma City, seemingly hundreds of miles away. The manly haven was called Coburn’s Ideal Barber Shop. A visit to Coburn’s was a weekly ritual of Oklahoma manhood, but it was far from ideal.

Coburn was a short, bald man with glasses. He always had the same uniform of the day – the white smock with a couple of combs and a pack of Chesterfield cigarettes sticking out of the only pocket. The three-quarters length smock just barely covered a couple of tattoos that Coburn picked up on shore leave in Hong Kong in the big war, dubya-dubya two. You could see one of them real well. It was the traditional ship’s anchor with “mom” dutifully inscribed on a banner right above the top of the artwork. The other one, well, Coburn would only reveal its entirety – quite proudly – when asked its contents.

She was a beauty. My dad and I both saw her – unbeknownst to the other – but we never admitted to each other that she existed. I’m certain he marveled at her, too.

Like a foggy morning in San Francisco, a cloud of haze -- smoke -- always hung around Coburn’s shop . It was generated by Coburn and his long-time fellow barber, Oren. Each puffed away on their unfiltered habits like it was the last toke before execution. After my dad and I were serviced one day, my dad asked Coburn, “I see your shoe shine stand is empty. Think my boy could help you out?"

Coburn scratched his bald head, thought for a second or two then looked at me and said, “Ever shine shoes?"

“No sir.”

“Well that’s okay,” he said. “We can show you. When can the boy start, Henry?” he asked my dad.

“Right now, if you want.”

I looked at my dad and felt like he wanted to abandon me, but such was not the case. It was his one way of exposing me, at an early age, to the job market. I was hired, as they say, on the spot. I was 10 years old, and hadn’t yet become familiar with Brylcreem – a little dab’ll do ya – Shinola and its proverbial antagonist, or the rite of manhood – exchanging the latest dirty jokes.

Unlike Coburn, Oren was a man of slight build, and ostensibly, a quiet and reserved worker. He had worked for Coburn for a number of years and they were like Laurel and Hardy or Carson and McMahon. Coburn was the extrovert. He was the glad-hander and back-slapper. Visitors often asked him if he was ever going to run for mayor.

“Nah,” he’d say. “I got more important things to do than sittin’ around with a bunch of politicians and talkin’ bull shit.” Then he’d laugh and say, “I can say what I want right here and still keep my job.”

By contrast, Oren was at the other end of the personality spectrum. If he wasn’t cutting your hair and running those shears next to your ear, you wouldn’t know he was there – except when someone would ask, “What’s the latest joke, Oren?”

It was as if the spotlight just came on and was focused on him. He could relate the most recent yarn with the flair of a polished stand-up comedian. The jokes were essentially the same, but it was Oren’s delivery that made everyone laugh. On cue, he would click off his shears, and begin his often-archaic anecdote. The clippers and long comb – his security blankets – remained in his hands at all times. He would give the opening line, turn the clippers back on, trim a little, turn them back off and continue the story.

He would go through this routine with every line until the story’s end. Then, unlike the polished comic, he would grin, smile and show the customers his best Deputy Dawg laugh. The guffaw was the best part of each joke. I guess he never realized that the men were more entertained with his laugh and delivery than the content of his homily. I learned more off-color jokes in that summer than I have learned in the subsequent years of my life.

Besides Oren and his jokes, the next best thing about Coburn’s was the bubble gum. He had a big fishbowl type jar sitting on the counter behind him. When he was done removing the hair from your head (or face), he’d brush off the excess with a small whiskbroom – no electric vacuums in those times. Then he’d remove the bedspread-size cloth from your body that diverted the fresh-cut follicles from you and your clothes, reach back into that jar and give each “young’n” a chuck of Bazooka bubble gum.

The sweet and everlasting smell of the Butch Wax, Bazooka Bubble Gum and Brylcreem sifted with secondary smoke and off-color jokes cannot be duplicated today. It seems like there are laws against all of that now. God Bless my former America!