Attribution: F. Holland Day, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
By Bill Stokes
Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that the keeper has been patronizing the school across the parking lot for his haircuts, enjoying the attention of a young ambitious student who snips at him gently under an instructor’s instructions. Like all things in the keeper’s life, the experience spawns memories.
It is Sunday morning in the farm kitchen. The keeper is perched on his little brother’s highchair with a dishtowel around his neck and Dad is approaching with the hand powered clippers.
The stage is set for high drama, and it happens. Dad, great in many respects was not noted for his patience, nor apparently his dexterity with hand-powered clippers. In the keeper’s words, “It felt as if my hair was being pulled out with a pair of pliers and of course I flinched and further complicated Dad’s haircutting. This situation progressed until I was in tears, Dad was cursing and threatening to do me harm if I did not sit still and Mom was wringing her hands and pleading for peace and tranquility all around.
This uncomfortable era was short lived as electricity came to the farm along with electric powered hair clippers that could also be used on the cows or to shear the sheep.
It is late in the game for the keeper to try to get sympathy for his long-ago crying haircuts, but it’s worth a try: “So, Phyllis it was before electricity came to the farm and I needed a haircut and……..”
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