Southern Reflections: Gettin’ Haircuts from Mr. Rufus Register
by Dewayne Gore © 2013 – All Rights Reserved
While reading an article written by Mr. Michael Graff in “Our State” magazine, my thoughts were taken back to my childhood and to a time when we did things simply because it was time to do them. We went to Church when it was time, had family gatherings when it was time, and got our hair cut when it was time.
One of my fondest childhood memories is of daddy taking me and my younger brother to see Mr. Rufus Register, the town barber, to get a haircut.
As the eighth of nine children, I don’t ever remember daddy suggesting us needing haircuts. Mother, on the other hand, would let us know when it was time. “You boys need a haircut!”, she’d tell us, usually while trying to brush our mops just before leaving for church or some other dress-up function. Once in a while, daddy would sneak off to the barbershop without us, and I would be crushed.
For me, it was a Rite of Passage and deserves to be described as such.
I knew very early there was something special about getting a haircut. Daddy always came home “smelling” like he had just had a haircut. It was a very distinct smell; Olde Spice and talcum powder hung thick around daddy when he came home. I couldn’t wait for the day when I, too, could come home smelling like daddy.
People seemed to notice after daddy had a haircut. “Daddy, you smell GOOD!”, “Nice haircut, Mr. Gore!”, and other niceties resonated around him, all of which I presumed to be compliments. Thus, I presumed Haircuts to be a thing of great importance and value to a man.
I waited patiently, watching and learning, and when “my time” came around, I had learned the smell could only get you so far, but “the look” had to do the rest. If you didn’t look like you just had a haircut, it was a waste of both time and money.
Finally, “My Time” came to go with daddy and get a haircut. I remember that ride to the local barber shop where my daddy and granddaddy had gotten their hair cut since time immemorial.
Mr. Rufus Register, as I always called him, owned a small shop in Shallotte, NC. It was no larger than what most folks would consider to be a storage building these days. Framed of wood, the shop was painted white and boasted a lone window on each side. A single door with a pane glass window marked the entrance. To complete the appearance, an “Open” or “Closed” sign hung in the window, telling patrons to “Come on in” or “Come back later”.
You didn’t need to be in the barber’s chair for your experience to begin. Stepping inside the door at Mr. Rufus Register’s Barber Shop, the first thing you noticed was the wonderful smell. It smelled like a barber shop, or at least how I had imagined a barber shop smelling. The next thing you would have noticed was the short, apron-clad fellow behind the barber chair smiling and welcoming you into his shop.
Inside, there were three chairs to the right and three to the left, adorned on either side by magazines stuffed inside wire rack dividers. Occasionally, several men would be seated, waiting patiently for their turn. Mr. Rufus Register’s shop only had a single barber chair, the shop’s Centerpiece, but it was the finest piece of barbery furniture I had ever seen, and I had not seen many . The chair floated up and down by way of a lever on the side which Mr. Register operated quite handily, and to which I took quite an interest.
A sign on the wall said it all: Haircuts were .10 cents for boys, and .25 cents for grown men. If you wanted a stylish “Flat Top”, very popular in those days, the cost was .50 cents. Tips would be appreciated. I wasn’t sure what a “tip” was, but felt certain that if it would be appreciated, I would be handing them out one day.
Mr. Register kept a board standing in the corner, which made a perfect booster seat for little boys when laid across the armrests of the chair. When my turn came, I would climb up on the step of the chair, grab an armrest, and Mr. Rufus Register himself woud lift me to a seated position on the board. I’ll never forget the grand day when I had outgrown the board and he allowed me to sit like a man in the chair. I remember it being so important, because he had been telling me for a while that I was “almost there”.
“Is it time, Mr. Rufus Register?”, I’d ask. Finally, as with all things, it was time, “Why, yes, I think it is”, he answered. All things have their time. I never sat on the board again, which, in my short life was a milestone.
I always felt important as Mr. Rufus Register put the cape around me, the same one grown men used, and he fastened it with snaps behind my neck, keeping the trimmed hair from falling down my neck and itching me for hours. He treated me with the same courtesy and respect that he gave the grown men, never once omitting a step just because I was a little boy. Trust me, I paid close attention and would have known. I will never forget the sound of the barber sheers when he turned them on; buzzing and snapping as he adjusted them, they letting me know “my turn” had arrived.
If you have never had a haircut, there is nothing which can adequately explain the feeling of barber sheers starting at the base of your neck and trimming upwards. Nothing can explain, either, the chill bumps it sent down my arms and body. I can hear him telling me, “Hold real still now, try not to move”.
Mr. Rufus Register made the end of the haircut as professional and special as the regular part, causing one to believe with all their heart that, without the end portion, the haircut would be incomplete. Using a horsehair brush, he would sweep away the cut hair from my face, neck, and shoulders. Unsnapping the cape from my neck, he would then do this shake-and-pop thing with it which dumped any remaining hair onto the floor.
Finally, an abundant powdering with talcum powder, followed by a splash of aftershave, and the experience was completed. But the haircut alone was not the main attraction, not for me anyways.
The person in the barber chair was the center of attention, and for what seemed like the first time in my life, I was the focal point of the moment. Seated in the barber chair, it was time for “man talk”, and thus seated, it was “my time” to tell of my own adventures and musings. Mr. Rufus Register would ask me questions, the answers to which I am certain he already knew, such as, “What grade are you in now?”. I would reply, “I’m too little, I don’t go to school, yet”. Mr. Register, feigning shock, would respond, “I thought you would be in the second or third grade by now”. I would always grin.
In what might seem to others as a simple “Haircut”, sitting in Mr. Rufus Register’s chair was an experience as important as any other experience in my childhood. It not only made me feel significant in an otherwise insignificant world, it also made me feel I was among equals with the grown men seated in his shop, and with those who had theretofore come and gone. I had, by virtue of Mr. Rufus Register, become part of a heritage of sorts.
When I was eight or nine years old, word came that Mr. Rufus Register was retiring and would be closing his shop. Soon thereafter, daddy told us Mr. Register had moved his shop, literally, to Shallotte Point, NC, next door to his house, and would only be cutting hair part-time for his regular customers. I was thrilled to learn that, due to being my daddy’s son, I, too, was considered a “Regular Customer”. For a young boy from a poor family, it was both humbling and empowering to be considered as part of such an elite group of men.
Over the next few years we moved around quite a bit and went to different barbers, but none were like Mr. Rufus Register and the experiences fell short of those to which I had grown accustomed. Before long, we would move back home and back our old friend’s barber shop.
We continued getting haircuts from him and I continued calling him by his full name, “Mr. Rufus Register”, until he got too old to cut hair. Years later, when I learned he had passed away from this earthly world and had gone on to be with the Lord, I felt as if an important part of my childhood had died.
I imagined back then, as I still often do, that God had inherited a fine Barber, and whoever had been cutting hair in Heaven had just lost his job to Mr. Rufus Register. Even today, I imagine God smelling like Olde Spice and talcum powder, and sporting the finest haircut in Heaven. I can only imagine the stories being told in that Heavenly Barber’s Chair, but I feel certain Mr. Rufus Register will be up there, making each one of them seem like the most important one yet.
Thanks for the memories, Mr. Rufus Register, and for making a poor child like me feel as important as everyone else. It all seems like so much received for only .10 cents spent, but those memories are as priceless to me today as they were back then.
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