I grew up in the 70s when long hair was in. Fortunately, my dad was not very strict and I was a good kid anyway.  He never made me get my hair cut very short.  I always wore my hair so it was covering most of my ears and parted on the side.  Respectable for the day, but nothing that would be noticeable. 

I think my dad understood that I hated the attention and teasing in school that would occur whenever one of the boys would come in with a fresh haircut, especially if it was on the short side.  “Get your ears lengthened?  Ha.  Ha.”  “AAAH, [INSERT VICTIM’S NAME] got a haircut.”  I was pretty self conscious anyway and would get teased enough for being bad in sports and being the class “brain” and “goody goody” (“faggot” didn’t start until Junior High).  So the last thing I needed was for people to tease me about my hair too.  So I would put off getting a haircut.  Then after about 5 or 6 weeks my mother would tell my dad to take me to the barbershop.  And, of course, being the loving, hen- pecked husband he is, we were off to the barbershop.

 We went to a traditional mens/boys barbershop in our suburban town with a row of seats behind the chairs for while you were waiting. I usually had the same barber as a kid.  I don’t remember the barber’s name and may never have know it -- he was an adult and I was a kid.  What more did I need to know?

 Fortunately, dad wouldn’t make me get much more than a trim ... “so just a little of the ear was showing.”  It was kind of unspoken that it had to be short enough to satisfy my mother so she wouldn’t say critically “Where’s the haircut?” when we got home -- as happened one time.  I sensed he wanted me to get a shorter haircut because he would often suggest it and wore a regular men’s business haircut himself, but he never pushed me too much about it. (Now when I see him, he comments about my crewcut and how he could never get me to get a haircut as a kid.)

In retrospect, I think even back then part of me wanted a shorter haircut but I didn’t have the nerve.  For example, I recall paying lots of attention to Gilbert S. in third grade (last name will remain anonymous), who I was very smitten with.  Every three weeks he would come in with his light brown hair all neatly trimmed in the greatest, short, regular boys haircut – off the ears, which was actually a noticeably short haircut back then.

So having this thing for haircuts and shorter haircuts in particular is something I can trace back as far as I can remember.  And I guess even as a kid I had what were precursors of fantasies about haircuts.  Two versions of the fantasy involved having two barbers for the same haircut.  That’s what I wanted to tell you more about now. 

In one version of the fantasy my dad would remind the barber how to cut my hair like usual. And the barber would start to give me the usual haircut.  But then he would get called away.  Maybe the phone would ring or something and after a few minutes he would ask one of the barbers to take over because he was going to be tied up for a while and I was just sitting there in the chair with my hair half cut.  The new barber would take over.  But he didn’t know how short to cut my hair and my dad wasn’t paying attention and I wasn’t saying anything.  So he would continue cutting it but would end up cutting it much shorter that usual, so that almost the whole ear was showing – which seemed very short to me as a boy.

In the other version, when we’d get to the barbershop, my usual barber wouldn’t be there.  So I would sit down in the chair of one of the other barbers.  But just as he was about to start cutting my hair, my usual barber would walk in or step about from the back of the shop or something.  The two barbers would get into a little disagreement with each other over who was going to give me the haircut.  They would resolve it by agreeing that both would cut my hair at the same time – one on one side and the other on the side.  Yeah, I know, it sounds stupid, but I was a little kid at the time and this really was one of my regular fantasies.  So they’d both be cutting away and after a while they’d notice that the two sides were different lengths, so they’d have to keep cutting it shorter to even it out.

Fast forward 25 years. I’ve been corresponding pretty regularly with some guys I met through the Internet who cut hair on the side.  One has given me a few haircut and they’ve been great experiences. Lately, I’ve been corresponding some with another guy who is attending barber college on Thursday.  He lives in another country but is planning to move to the U.S. soon. 

So it looks like my old fantasies about two barbers are starting to come back to me.  I’ll write more about this later.