News-Record.com

Nothing seems more American than a barbershop. Red, white and blue barber poles. Endless political talk. All kinds of people waiting for a trim.

Never mind that the barbershop dates to Bronze Age Egypt and became popular in Rome and Greece about 300 B.C. The barber pole also is ancient, originally red and white, with the red symbolizing blood customers coughed up when barbers also doubled as dentists and bloodletters. The blue in the pole was added later by shops in the United States.

But forget all that history. There's no better way to catch some patriotic spirit this July 4th week than the Style & Cut Shop, whose four owners won't go bonkers if you call them barbers instead of the more modern stylists.

The shop owned by Ron Teague, Bill Gregory, Larry Stinson and Don "Red" Johnson isn't Greensboro's oldest, nor are its four barbers - who range from 61 to 66. But it would be hard to find another shop where the same men have been cutting hair for a combined 180 years.

That's only slightly younger than the U.S., which turns 232 Friday.

"They are nice guys with different personalities," longtime customer Jim Plyler says. "I think it is interesting four people can get along so well and stick together."

"This shop has taken the place of the country store," car dealer Garson Rice Jr. says, as Larry Stinson, cutting Rice's hair, beams. "It's where big egos are cut to size, as well as long hair. Its a cornucopia of bad jokes and questionable golf tips," Rice says.

Politics gets discussed, too. What reporter hasn't visited a barbershop during an election year? The Style & Cut barbers know how to finesse political discussions so as not to rile customers. They mostly listen as those sitting opine.

Even though the public identifies barbershops with the barber pole, the symbol isn't as common anymore. Style & Cut barbers haven't had one since they left Clippard's Barber Shop in Friendly Shopping Center in 1976. Don Johnson had joined Clippard's in 1961, Bill and Larry came in 1966 and Ron in 1970, after shearing sailors for four years on a Navy ship, part of the time anchored off Vietnam.

The shop now has red, white and blue in the form of two tiny American flags tucked into the lattice work between the barbers' cubicles. Additional patriotic color comes from a framed photo of Teague's stepson in Marine Corps dress blues.

Cubicles for barbers are another change since the 1960s. Clippard's had 16 heavy steel and leather chairs. Each had a strop hanging from the side for sharpening straight-edged razors for shaves.

A manicurist cut nails and a shine man buffed foot leather.

When the barber was done, he mouthed the words of the motor-mouth barber in the short story, "Haircut," by the late writer Ring Lardner: "Comb it wet or dry?" He meant did the customer want him to reach for one of those liquor-bottle-shaped hair tonics, such as Wildroot Cream Oil and Vitalis, and slick down the hair?

When completely done and loose hair removed with a fluffy feather duster (now a vacuum tube does the task), the barber hollered, "Next."

Today, "next" has a name.

At Style & Cut, 99 percent of customers make appointments, though walk-ins are accommodated. Each barber has a phone, which rings constantly with calls for appointments.

Chairs at Style & Cut have a low, modern look although they verge on antiques. They were bought new when the four barbers left Clippard's and opened a shop in the nearby Forum VI Mall.

Barber shops were in flux then, trying to update, be more professional and less male. The buzz word was "unisex." The term "barbershop" went out of style like the old flat-top cut. Women eventually accounted for about 10 percent of Style & Cut's business. But the figure has dropped to about 4 percent.

Style & Cut prospered in the mall for 21 years, until Forum VI was converted to offices.

For 11 years, the four barbers - and a part-time shine man, Cecil Summers - have cut and combed from a shop on Georgia Street, just off State Street.

The barbers' togetherness, they believe, results from a long-ago decision regarding money. Don't let it become a cutting issue.

"We all get the same check," says Teague, explaining that though some partners might not cut as much hair during a week as the others, they're cleaning up, ordering supplies, paying bills.

"We keep our tips separately, but not the checks. I don't know if another place is like it," Teague says.

The four barbers have watched families start and expand. Edward Benjamin, founder of Friendly Center, got his hair cut at Clippard's when the four worked there. Benjamin's son, Mente, his son, Bill and Bill's son, Will, continue the tradition at Style & Cut. The four barbers also have done four generations of the Sidney Cone clan.

Caring for their customers sometimes means service when old age makes a customer less mobile.

The barbers spend time in hospitals and rest homes cutting hair of loyalists.

Oddly, most customers no longer arrive with elaborate instructions on how they want their hair cut. "Just shortened it up," some say, A father, as his son climbed into the chair, said, "Get it off his ears."

With children, as barbers have done for eons, those at Style & Cut barbers reach into a big bucket of bubble gum for treats.

And there's no leaving this barbershop without a bit of corny advertising.

"We stand behind our work,'' Larry Stinson shouts.

He's fibbing. He now sits while cutting.

Years of standing and barbering eventually forces the best of barbers off their feet.

Contact Jim Schlosser at 601-9879 or beale1@clearwire.net