Changing barbers can be traumatic, as Harry Cline just found out

Change becomes more challenging with age; however, you learn how to accept it … for the most part.

For those of us who are long-of-tooth, we accept changing doctors.

Changing dentists.

Changing where we shop for groceries.

Changing mechanics.

Changing the way we shop. (Discovering Amazon can be fun ... and dangerous)

Some of us have even go into Walmart.

However, there is one change that can be very traumatic and very unsettling.

Changing barbers.

It’s not easy to find someone else to cut your hair.

I have been going to the same Fresno barber for roughly 40 years.

No big deal, you say. Hair grows back. It does, but your barber is more than a hair cutter.

A barber chair is not just a place to rest — and maybe doze off — for 20 minutes while you get your mop tamed and appease the wife.

Billy Reynolds, my barber for four decades, and I have shared families growing up, divorce, a myriad of illnesses on both sides, death of spouses and those predictable barber shop jokes.

I called for a haircut appointment recently. Billy answered his cell with: “I’m retired. I just got out of the hospital.”

I have heard that last sentence several times over the last few years. He’s been on oxygen lately (COPD) after years of smoking while waiting for the next customer to show up.

However, I never thought I would hear, “I’m retired.” I knew the day would come, when Billy would no longer take my appointment, but I did not think I would hear it from him. I figured I’d walk into the barbershop and find black ribbon across his chair.

He told me more than once that he would never retire. “What would I do?”

Billy left me before, once when he closed his barbershop, “Headhunter.” The strip mall where it was located sold out to Walmart. He landed at his most recent shop, Hi-Life, after a few weeks. I had to go to another shop one time then, and I didn’t like it.

Another time I missed a turn in his chair. It was his fault. I walked into the shop for my appointment and Billy was sitting in his barber chair, his bandaged-wrapped right hand held high in the air to ease the pain. He had caught his finger in his garage door chain that morning trying to raise his broken door. He said he’d get his finger out when he got home, but he wanted to come to the shop to let his customers know he could not cut hair today. He was back cutting hair a week later.

You can bet no doctor would be that loyal.

I told Billy several times that he could not “go” before I did. I did not want to find another barber.

However, now I must accept it ... my barber has left me. I tried a new barber. She’s good and a lot better looking than bald Billy.

Neither one of us have “gone” yet, but before the inevitable happens to one of us, thanks, my friend for being my barber, confident and friend for all these years.

This story was originally published December 24, 2019 at 12:06 PM with the headline "Changing barbers can be traumatic, as Harry Cline just found out."