A few decades ago singer Ray Stevens wrote and made famous a comical number called “The Haircut Song.”

“When you get a haircut,” Stevens sang, “be sure to go back home. When you get a haircut, get a barber you have known.” He goes on to tell of the harrowing experiences he experienced in unfamiliar barbershops.

While it’s a fictional number, I can tell you “The Haircut Song” is close to the truth.

As a youngster, Dad decided who would cut my hair. After all, he was paying the bill. After I was old enough to pay for my own haircuts, I tried out several barbers. This was back when each spring I’d ask the barber to use the thinning shears.

I’ve outgrown that need.

Each barber I tried gave a good haircut so I didn’t worry much about finding a new barber when we moved to Sioux City.

Our son, then about 14 months old, needed a haircut first so I took him to a barbershop in the Sioux City suburb where we lived at the time. Dirk had a Dutch boy haircut popular in the ’70s. It was the dry look: no hair oil. I told the barber not to cut it short; just trim it up and block the back and bangs.

When I looked up a few minutes later the barber had nearly scalped my kid and was slicking what was left with hair oil. Our son looked like a skinned rat — a cute skinned rat but a skinned rat nonetheless.

When it was my turn for a haircut, I tried the other barber in town. I carefully explained to him that I did not want it cut short. It was the ’70s and I wanted to maintain the full, over the ears and long sideburns look. Several minutes later he turned the chair around to allow a look in the mirror and (gasp) he had nearly scalped me. Unlike my son, this skinned rat wasn’t cute.

There was a barber shop a few doors from my downtown Sioux City office so when I next needed a haircut I went there. After giving the barber a thorough description of the trim I wanted, I confidently carried on a conversation with him. When he turned me around to look in the mirror I saw that (horrors) I had white sidewalls again.

I began to wonder if there was a barber in Sioux City who knew how to give a decent contemporary haircut. A co-worker recommended a large multiple-chair shop on the north side, a half hour drive from where we lived. I didn’t mind the drive, though, because my son and I got a good haircut each time.

A few years later we learned that an excellent young barber was cutting hair at a shop near our home in Sioux City so we made the switch and began a long association with Jack the Barber.

My son and I experienced deja vu when we moved to Creston. After another scalping there, I turned to a co-worker for help and she recommended a female stylist in town.

A woman? I had never had my hair cut by a woman. It just didn’t seem to be the manly thing to do.

Fearing another scalping elsewhere, I made an appointment with Irma and was totally pleased with my haircut. Irma was our stylist for the next 12 years.

After our next move, finding a good barber was easy. My cousin, Denny, was a barber in Ankeny and a darn good one. Denny gave a great haircut, told good stories, laughed at my jokes (even when he had heard them before) and we get to swap family news.

Denny and I are only a few months apart in age. He kept on cutting hair for a few years after I retired but when the Covid pandemic hit, Denny hung up his scissors and shears. I went quite a while between haircuts at the beginning of the Covid shutdown but finally needed a trim (badly.)

There are very few traditional barber shops left in our part of town so I decided to patronize my wife’s stylist and am now getting haircuts from stylists young enough to be my granddaughters. They give a good haircut and are excellent conversationalists, so I’m fine with that.

The amount of hair needing clipping each time is decreasing. But I am encouraged by the words of the great Dolly Parton: “Just because you’ve lost your fuzz don’t mean you ain’t a peach.”

Now those words would make great lyrics to a better haircut song.

Arvid Huisman can be contacted at huismaniowa@gmail.com. © 2024 by Huisman Communications.