On his last day behind the chair, Wayne Pope packed the house at Wayne's Barber Shop. All the old regulars turned out for another haircut as if there was no tomorrow. And there wasn't.
After 45 years of cutting hair, Wayne hung up his electric razor and walked out the door of his tiny barbershop in the Avenues for the last time, retired at 66. Ron Erikson, one of his first customers, requested the honor of being his last customer. Pope gave him one of his standard 10-minute haircuts, and that was it, except for the surprise party that the regulars threw him in the shop.
A slice of Americana went out the door with Pope. This was more than a barbershop; it was a time warp. Wayne was a self-described "old-fashioned men's barber," not a "hair stylist" or "follicle engineer" or whatever they call them nowadays. He worked in a one-chair barbershop, not a "salon," where men sat on benches waiting their turns, reading magazines and gabbing about ballgames and kids and politics.
It was like falling into a Norman Rockwell painting.
This was where salt-of-the-earth men came for the old-timey haircuts. Wayne didn't do perms; didn't do bleach jobs; didn't tip hair. Spiking and ponytails didn't even come up. Wayne did taper cuts. His specialty was the flattop, which he rendered as smooth and even as a fairway. If you asked for it, he'd strop a straight razor, slop on some lather and shave your neck.
Wayne was a purist. When he cut hair, he didn't use numbered attachments for his clippers; he used his fingers and eyes to cut your hair the exact length you wanted.
"Old barbers don't use attachments," he sniffed, acting like an umpire who'd just been asked if he needed glasses.
He didn't change much with the times and didn't have to. He began cutting hair in 1957 and cut it almost nonstop for the next 45 years, five days a week, 7 a.m. to 5. People asked him why he worked such long hours. Dumb question. He had to keep up with his customers.
He cut about 30 heads a day (in Olympic terms, he was the Carl Lewis of barbers). He took only one week a year for vacation and never once called in sick because it was too much work catching up when he got back. He gave so many haircuts that he could have cut the hair of everyone in LaVell Edwards Stadium — 5 1/2 times.
He cut hair by appointment only, and he came to know his customers so well that he knew most of them by their voices on the phone, no names necessary. Then again, some of them had been his clients for four decades. They were plumbers, professors, governors, doctors, legislators, teachers, you name it.
"We're all mad at him for retiring," says Dr. Gordon Evans, a client of 40 years. Men tend to get attached to a good barber.
When Wayne started cutting hair, he charged $1.25 for a haircut (75 cents for kids). When he retired, he was charging $8, and that included the conversation and counseling. His clients tended to tell him personal things — about work, family, problems — and ask for advice. He worked on the outside of their heads, and sometimes the inside, and he was cheaper than a psychologist.
"The only difference between me and a bartender is that they're not drunk when they tell you things," Wayne said.
Somehow Wayne survived all the trends — crew cuts, ducktails, long hair, buzz cuts. . . . The '60s and '70s were to barbers what the '30s were to stockbrokers. There were once four barbers in the avenues; Wayne was the last one left standing.
"We're a dying breed," said Wayne.
Wayne laments that men are no longer going into the barber business. They're being replaced by "girls," he says, and barbershops are being replaced by salons.
"Another one bites the dust," says Wayne, referring to himself.
Wayne's Barber Shop won't be empty, though. There will be a new barber — Maxine Shoell. Yes, as in a woman.
"She went to school as a male barber," says Wayne. "I had to find someone who's a barber."
Doug Robinson's column runs on Tuesdays. E-mail drob@desnews.com.