December « 2008 « Coal Creek Farm

The Country Architect

Clay is an architect. When he leaves for work he wears beautifully pressed dress slacks and a crisp pinpoint collar shirt with a snazzy silk tie positioned perfectly in a double Windsor knot. He looks like a million bucks.

But, when he comes home, he sheds all that fancy-schmancy stuff and puts on his Country Clay. Ever since we’ve been doing the Damn Ramsey thing, Clay has insisted that I cut his hair. Mind you, that this is the same man that used to pay $60 on a haircut in a fine salon…..much to my annoyance.

Now, that I’m living with a man that doesn’t want to spend once red cent on ANYTHING, he thinks I am the best haircut in town. A few days ago the weather was beautiful and Clay was taking a vacation day, so we headed out to the porch for a haircut and Clay made the profound statement, “Now, this is country living. Getting a haircut on the porch with three cats rubbing against my leg and a rooster tucked under a chair.”

I don’t think any of Clay’s clients or employees would believe he gets his haircut on a porch with a rooster and three cats.

Or that he wears jeans with holes in both knees and has a dog he named Preacher.

He’s the Country Bumpkin Architect, just don’t tell anyone, okay?

Haircuttin’ the Country Way

My mom went to beautician school way back in the 60′s. She would cut my hair, put it up in a bouffaunt which I would prompty go brush out with my fingers and the worst was when she would wash it with vinegar while I screamed, “It smells like pickles!!!”

She wouldn’t let me grow my hair long until I was in junior high. Mom always thought I looked best with a short pixie cut and for that reason most people thought I was a boy. I’m sure it had nothing to do with the fact that I wore Billy the Kid jeans and cowboy boots and my favorite toy was a shotgun accompanied by a holster with two six shooters. I wanted to be a cowboy, dang-it.

Mom also wouldn’t let me do any sort of chemical process to my hair. So, while my sister was highlighting and perming her hair I had to sit back and watch with envy as she transform her hair into something new and trendy. Then the summer before my sophomore year in high school I made an appointment in the trendiest local beauty salon and asked for a perm. It didn’t fry my hair or turn it green like Mom feared. But, it did make my hair even whiter and frizzy like a poodle. That’s when boys started calling me April the Albino, it was that white. So, I stayed away from perms for a few years.

Mom had kept all her supplies, including one of those huge dryers you sit under, we always had rollers, clips, drapes, razors and scissors. It wasn’t weird that I would cut my bangs and most of the time they looked okay. Then I started cutting other people’s hair. There were several boys that were friends of mine that would come out, sit on a stool out in our sunroom and I would cut their hair in weird patterns. My friend, Brian, wanted a zigzag cut into the back of his hair, so I did a zigzag and then older folks kept asking him if he was the youngster that had been in the car accident earlier in the year and had to have brain surgery. I never said I was good at cutting hair, it was just something I did, and for some reason a few people trusted me enough to work on their heads and then walk around in public.

Now, I have my own hair salon. It’s in a nice breezy place. I don’t have many customers and the few I do have, never leave with a smile on their face.