Small-town barber shops are the best

If you're a guy and you go somewhere other than a classic downtown storefront barber shop of between one and four chairs, you are missing an experience that will help complete your training as a male of the species. What's there? No "Cosmopolitan" or "Us Weekly" magazine. Maybe "Time" or "Newsweek," and almost always a couple years' worth of "Outdoor Life" and "Sports Illustrated." Sometimes there's a television, in case there's a ballgame on, or golf; if not, reruns of COPS will do. But best of all (besides a fine haircut at a reasonable price) is the local flavor. By that, of course, I mean the characters.

A couple days ago I visited a fine local example of this institution on Gladstone's Portland Avenue. On this particular day, Ton, the proprietor, didn't have much to say, but that was mainly because he could not get a word in edgewise. The leader of the day's discussion just preceded me in through the door, but he graciously offered to let me go ahead. I told him I was on vacation and not in a particular hurry, but he informed me that he was coming up on 87 years of age and had been on vacation 20 straight years. So I was next.

I think the guy just wrapping up in the chair knew what was coming, because when he was finished, he didn't leave; he just took a seat.

During the course of my haircut, we covered a lot of ground. Howard Hobson had refereed this gentleman's eighth-grade football game; I'm not sure I exactly followed the story that Mr. Hobson flattened a mouthy head coach with one post-game punch. (BTW, this would have been about six years before Hobby led the Tall Firs of the University of Oregon to the first NCAA basketball championship.) Did you know Tommy Prothro was played quarterback in the 1942 Rose Bowl game that was played in North Carolina due to onset of the war with Japan? (I knew it had been played there, didn't know Prothro was involved.) At Oregon State, I learned, Coach Prothro always had a couple cases of Coke handy; "The Pumpkin" (that's Dee Andros for any latecomers), on the other hand, kept a keg of beer nearby. And the Oregon State baseball squad defeated Oregon two out of three during my conversational partner's time on campus in Corvallis. I couldn't really figure out if he actually played ball for the Beavers, but he did tell me that Oregon's baseball coach was the legendary Len Casanova; "heckuva football coach, but he didn't know much about baseball."

Our conversation wasn't completely limited to sports. Too many countries have the A-bomb. Stay healthy by walking an hour and a half every day ("that's your job"). At some point, this world isn't going to be able to handle all the people on it. China and India now have as many people as the Earth's entire population in the '30s.

That was probably about half of what we went through. I don't know how long I was there, but it seemed like the fastest haircut I ever had. And before I left, it was pointed out to me that someday I'd be eligible to pay the same price he does; those age 65 and better pay $10 instead of $12. Well, I've got a few years to go yet. But if every visit to the barber shop is as interesting and entertaining as this one, there's no doubt about the value of that extra two dollars.

Baker History: College Football

I'm initiating a page on Ralph "Moon" Baker, my great uncle and an All-American halfback at Northwestern University in the 1920s. The triple-threat halfback led the Wildcats to a tie for the Big Ten conference title in 1926. He was named to the College Football Hall of Fame in 1981. Only my uncle Gerald (Dad's older brother) rivals Ralph in gridiron accomplishments (a running back for Wesleyan University, he was pictured alongside the great Jim Brown of Syracuse in a Sports Illustrated college football preview issue). See link at left.

Observations on a late-night stroll

Somebody remind me why we can't put an adequate public library on the property near the intersection of Webster and Oatfield.

If you live in the area of Stonehill, Barbary, Ridgegate and Stonewood (or pretty much anywhere else north of Kenmore or east of Oatfield, take the dog food and the cat food off your back porch. It's attracting racoons.

It seems like sprinklers on the baseball field at Kraxberger could be set so they don't make mud pits of first base and home plate every night. I can't imagine any benefits to watering dirt.