Nowadays a man can get a haircut in a beauty salon. There was a time a man wouldn't have been caught dead in one. My, how times have changed. I got to thinking about a very special haircut when I was getting my hair cut at the the Cutting Crew salon in Maynardville the other day.

The incident I want to tell you about happened in the early 70's. There was a small barbershop on the road into town, like a number of one room barber shops in those years. This one went out of business shortly after our visit.

My husband needed a haircut. He had been getting it at this one chair shop for a number of months. The price was cheaper than the shops downtown and the barber never seemed to be busy. “A bargain is a bargain,” he would say, but not after this time. To save on gas when we went to town, we always made a number of stops: the grocery store, gas station, drug store, etc. This time it was a special trip to my husband's favorite barber shop. The next day would be Sunday. He wanted to look nice for church. I went with him.

A feature of all barber shops back then was their selection of magazines: Time, Life, Saturday Evening Post, Collier's and Sports Illustrated, out of date but readable. Television only had three channels and we couldn't afford to go to the movies, so those magazines were a treat for me. I settled in to read.

I only looked up when the barber started to apologize profusely. He was telling my husband how sorry he was. What was that about? Then I saw the reason. There was a white streak up from the nape of my husband's neck to the top of his head; a streak one clipper wide and very noticeable. I smiled.

Until this time my husband had been very proud of his hair. Before he had the chickenpox, he wore a small pompadour with the sides slicked back. That is another story to tell. Then, he had it butched with a flat top. It looked good, too, but not after the day in question. The barber apologized again. There would be no charge. My husband was livid. What would the people at church say the next morning when he showed up with a polecat haircut? The only way to fix it was to cut off the rest of his hair. I figured that wasn't going to happen.

The next morning at church we walked in and sat in our usual pew. No one mentioned my husband's haircut. It was like the elephant in the room, only bigger. After services we hurried out. Instead of turning toward home, he made a quick stop at the drug store. A decision had been reached. He would buy a set of clippers and I would cut his hair from then on.

The shop closed soon after that. The barber had a drinking problem. Either he or someone else decided it was time for him to hang up his clippers and retire. My husband would grumble about the incident every time we passed the closed shop. I just smiled. I knew better than to say anything.