The Haircut

My father was a great barber during the depression. He had his own technique, and it worked just fine.
He would have me sit in the highchair, so he would have a good angle from which to use the scissors. A towel was fastened around my neck, and then a properly sized mixing bowl put on my head. He would cut all the way around below the bowl edge. The cut for the bangs depended on how good an eye he had --snip and comb, snip and comb.
This he called our special "dutch cut" and it worked very well for me and for Johnny. It did not work for Frank who was older. So Frank got to have a regular haircut by the town barber.

At age ten, I was pretty much an "I can do it" kid like my great grandson Evan, who is eight years old right now. So--when my friend Tillie started looking a little shaggy, I offered to cut her hair. Having seen how Dad did it, I was sure I knew exactly how. I put a bowl over her head and started cutting, but somehow the cut just didn't match the bowl edge. After cutting, it just wasn't a straight edge.

"Perhaps if you wet it down," Tillie suggested, "it will stay in one place."

I wet it down and began cutting. I cut one side, but then the other was too long. I cut the other side, and that left the first side too long. By the time I had both sides relatively even, her hair was pretty much above the ears and she resembled Oaky Doaks. When she looked in the mirror, she began to cry. I reassured her that it was the newest "French haircut." She looked very unconvinced.

Apparently her parents were also unconvinced. The next person to comment on her haircut was my Mom, who had some relatively unhappy comments from Tillie's mom. I do remember that in between her comments to me she was trying to hold back some laughter. It was impressed upon me that initiative is a good thing, within limits. And I never did apply for a barber's license!