Do people talk with each other anymore? Here’s an idea: Call and invite someone to lunch, or coffee or for a drink. Both of you agree to put up your “devices.” Better yet, invite someone outside your usual circle, someone different, maybe even someone of a different race, different politics or with different views on religion. Amazing what a face-to-face conversation can do for understanding.
Friday afternoon Bobby Jordan’s barber shop on Military Road across from the old Lee High School was packed out. Every chair had a customer and four clients were waiting their turn.
I got to know Bobby when we served together on a police chief search committee (a bad idea for a media person, but that’s another story). Occasionally, I stop by the shop.
When I called him last week to go to lunch, I had nothing particular in mind, certainly not this column, just a visit. Bobby, 58, is the son of a barber. He is a Columbus native; his first home was on Southside (on a street known as “Trash Alley”); he now lives in New Hope.
His dad, Adam, had a shop on Catfish Alley and later on 14th Avenue North.
His father’s shop was a one-chair operation. Bobby has 14 chairs, a salon and a shoe-stand. (A basic shine costs $5, nowadays.)
When he was young, Bobby wasn’t having any of it, hair cutting, that is. “Too much familiarity,” he said.
For 10 years he was produce manager at Sunflower in east Columbus.
“Got some good lessons from Mr. Ed (Townsend, then owner of the local Sunflower stores),” he said.
When his dad’s health began failing, Bobby, one of five boys in the family, became a barber. That was 25 years ago. He wanted to keep the family business going into another generation, he said.
He has, and, from the looks of it, has enjoyed doing so. Along the way, he’s learned something about human nature. “We do a lot of talking in here,” he said.
“George Burns said the world would be a better place if it were run by people who drive cabs, serve drinks and cut hair,” said Jordan. “Because we hear it all.”
For some clients, the conversation is as important as the hair cut.
“You know, they used to say a barber shop was a black man’s country club,” he said.
One customer, a school principal, told Jordan he wouldn’t go to a barber that wouldn’t talk. Jordan goes a step further. He knows the interests of his customers and he tries to match them with a barber with similar interests.
“You got somebody who likes cars, I put ’em with a barber who likes cars,” he said.
Most guys are going to talk about sports, Jordan said. That subject is not his forte. “I’m limited, but I’ve got a good memory,” he said.
“We get a lot of Alabama fans in here. I tell ’em, we’re good Christians over here; we let you talk bad about Mississippi State.”
Over lunch at Twisted Burger we agreed on the benefits of people getting together and simply talking. Too many of us are content with the routines we’ve created for ourselves.
It doesn’t take a lot to get Bobby Jordan talking about community and personal responsibility.
Kids often call him looking for work. Later in the afternoon on the day we met, a 13-year-old was coming in to help clean up.
“I tell these kids, your first job is to go to school,” he said.
Even so, he tries to find kids looking for work something to do. “We’re not farming anymore,” he said, “it’s hard to teach kids about work.”
These days kids too seldom get instruction on basic manners, he said.
“I remember reading about a woman who went into a business. Nobody said ‘welcome,’ ‘thank you’ or ‘come back.’ We’ve got to teach kids that. It’s all our job.”
As I get ready to leave the shop, I stop to look at the selection of posters on the wall in the foyer.
“My wife says I ought to get this stuff off the walls,” Jordan said. “I told her, ‘This ain’t no Better Homes, this is a barber shop.'”
Birney Imes III is the immediate past publisher of The Dispatch.
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