Skip to main content

The Barber Shoppe

Podcast  – The Barber Shoppe . . .


No man is rich enough to buy back the past.” – Oscar Wilde.


With baseball still on hold, that quote certainly rings true, however, vivid memories at unexpected times can flood the present.


Driving home from an errand the other night, I happened to turn the car radio to AM 570 and heard this, “Its time for Dodger baseball.” That iconic start to a game on the radio from announcer Vin Scully.


“How is this possible,” I thought? There are no baseball games right now. And Vin Scully is retired!


That familiar voice on the radio however immediately took me back . . .


Cuba, Il., the early 1960s, Main Street Barber Shop.


You see, as a young boy, my first memory of Major League Baseball was not a game on television or a visit to a Major League park. The “game” was always background noise, from an old Zenith AM radio, on a green shelf, in our local barbershop, tuned to 720 WGN Chicago.

Monthly, my father would take my brothers and me for our haircuts to Main Street Barber Shop in Cuba. Its proprietor Bernard Lyons, the locals called him Cocky Lyons (never knew why), he was a rabid Cubs fan.

The ole' timers would congregate at the Shoppe to sit, listen to the game, and sometimes get a shave and a haircut. The sweet smell of Vitalis filled the air, the jars of blue liquid with combs on the shelf, and of course conversations about the plight of the Chicago Cubs.

Listen carefully and you can hear the sounds of that era - “Double play! “Number 10 Ron Santo makes a spectacular unassisted double play at third from a line drive off the bat of Cardinals left fielder Curt Flood!” Shouts Cubs’ announcer Jack Brickhouse.

It's funny, what makes that memory so vivid was my youngest brother's reaction to the barbershop visit. It was always a traumatic experience for him. 

“Well, Doc what'll it be for these boys, the usual?”

“Yes sir, they love the crew cut.”

My brothers always got the dreaded crew cut. And they hated it!

Anyway, muffled discussions could be heard, as patrons chewed the fat, "Santo is the best third basemen in baseball.”

“No, I'm afraid you're wrong, it's Ken Boyer, of the Cardinals," – instantly a hushed silence as the voice on the radio suddenly came to life - “Homerun Ernie Banks!

Cocky would pause from his work as my brother squirmed in the barber chair wailing, with tears streaming down his cheeks.

Me, I listened and calmly waited for my turn. Knowing that if my curly hair was cut too short Dad would never hear the end of it from Mom.

Hmmm, thinking back, this just might be the traumatic experience that compelled my brother to become a Cardinals fan?

Isn’t it funny what triggers a memory, a sound, a smell, the announcement of a baseball game on the radio! Guess I should make an appointment to get my haircut - it's going on four months now.

This is Patrick Ball, thanks for listening. See you in the next episode.
Labels:

Comments

Russell Shor said…
Nothing like Baseball to revive memories. Like you Cubs fans, we Phillies fans measured our season dreams by small victories -- Richie Ashburn batting .300 or the team breaking .500 for the season.
June 27, 2020 at 1:55 PM
Patrick B. Ball said…
Absolutely, thanks, Russ. My favorite player during that Era had to be Ernie Banks - Mr. Cub.
June 28, 2020 at 5:32 AM
Post a Comment

Most Popular of All Time

The Gopher Problem and the High Powered Solution

Vacationing in Maine this week, just a short drive down the coast from Freeport, it is hard not to think about the outsized impact one frustrated outdoorsman had on the gear we all use today. Bad equipment can ruin a perfectly good day on the water or the trail, but it takes a special kind of vision to turn cold feet into a century-old empire. This is the story of the company we now know as L.L.Bean, but more importantly, it is a masterclass in integrity, learning from failure, and standing behind your work. In 1912, Leon Leonwood Bean faced a persistent problem: returning from expeditions in the Maine woods with cold, wet feet. Instead of complaining, he got creative. He had a local shoemaker stitch waterproof rubber soles onto the flexible leather uppers of a hunting boot. He called it the Maine Hunting Shoe and mailed a flyer promising perfect satisfaction. Then reality arrived. Ninety of his first 100 pairs failed when the rubber separated from the leather. Not an effective product...
Post a Comment
Read more

On Becoming Real

Some things get better with wear: old shoes, old friendships, and old books. Especially old books. A new volume arrives with crisp corners and a spine that hasn’t yet learned to bend. An old one has been somewhere. It has traveled through time in the hands of people who may no longer be around to tell us what they found inside. The copy of The Velveteen Rabbit (first published in 1922) on my desk is one of those books. My friend Don Hanley gave it to me. This late-1950s Doubleday edition features William Nicholson’s original illustrations and cream paper boards softened by age. Worn corners, a split spine, and colored tabs mark passages worth revisiting. Don didn’t hand me a keepsake. He gave me homework. When we talked about the book recently, he pointed me straight to the nursery conversation between a young rabbit and an old Skin Horse. The rabbit had noticed the mechanical toys around him—the ones with internal gears, bright paint, and stick-out handles that seem terribly impressiv...
Post a Comment
Read more

A Dog, a Beer . . . and the Ghost of 1912

Whenever you step into an American cathedral of our National Pastime built before modern ergonomics, municipal zoning, or crowd-flow dynamics, an unspoken understanding forms, creating a welcoming, timeless atmosphere. You trade legroom, sensible corridors, and personal space for the privilege of communing with ghosts. Last week, Lori and I made our pilgrimage to Fenway Park to watch our Chicago Cubs take on the Boston Red Sox (a taut 0–2 contest that felt spiritually tied to their 1918 World Series meeting). Staying just across the Charles River at the Courtyard Marriott in Cambridge gave us one immeasurable tactical advantage: we walked. While the automotive gridlock around Kenmore Square took on the character of the Siege of Yorktown—horns echoing across the asphalt like musket fire—we simply strolled across the Boston University Bridge, enjoying the river breeze and feeling smugly superior to everyone trapped behind a steering wheel. Fenway, built in the spring of 1912, holds rough...
Post a Comment
Read more

Paris – the End of Silence

✈️  In this special episode: Paris – the End of Silence Sometimes, connection arrives in the most unexpected form—not through grand gestures, but through a quiet voice carried by technology. In a Paris apartment, I finally understood my family’s words . . . and felt my mother’s presence in every sentence. Since I was a little boy, France has been both a beautiful and frustrating paradox in my life. Every six to nine years, my mother, Mauricette, would take my brothers and me back to La Rochelle to visit our French family. The moment we arrived, the air would fill with a sound I loved but couldn’t share in—the rapid-fire, musical rhythm of French. My aunts, uncles, and cousins would warmly sweep me into hugs and kisses, their words flowing like a lovely melody I couldn’t quite catch. I’d smile brightly, trying to communicate with my eyes and hands. But as soon as we stepped off the plane, my mother and her sister-in-law, Joséan, started talking animatedly. They were gone, chatting h...
2 comments
Read more