Straight-Razor Shave

My Dad is out visiting my sister and me in Colorado.  Well, he was.  I took him to the airport this morning.  He stopped here for a few days after going to Atlanta to watch Richard and the Beach Bots compete in the FIRST competition this past week.  Anyhow, yesterday he decided he wanted to get a professional shave, and preferred a straight-razor shave.  We Yahoo-yellow-paged to find a place and found a barber shop in very south Colorado Springs.  We both assumed that since it was a barbershop they’d do the shave thing.  Well, Art (at Rico’s) said, “Nope.  Most barbers stopped shaving a long time ago.”  “BUT,” he said, “there’s a shop not too far north and just up the street that might still do it.”  He gave us directions….”just west of Nevada, before I-25, across from “The Red Top” restaurant”…he said there’s a barber who works out of his house.  We headed back north, and found the restaurant, and down the street a ways I saw the sign! 

Don’t have to go in to know that we’ve found exactly the place we’re looking for!  And what a curious place it was.  We were met at the door by a handful of small, barky, scruffy, cream and beige and tan dogs; all different breeds and mixes.  The walls were covered with license plates, buttons, bottles of hot sauce, and all manner of memorabilia!  What a curious and interesting place!  There were only two seats inside.  The barber, Paul Hansen, had just finished a haircut and he showed my dad to a wonderful old barber chair and reclined him back.  There was a lady there cutting a man’s hair in the other chair.  The patron, as it turns out, was getting his first short haircut in years.  While there another man came who had very long hair and informed Paul that he was ready to get his hair cut short.  Only not that day.  He was just coming to visit for a bit!  It was THAT kind of place.

You can’t see how cute my dad is in this picture, but he is…really cute!

There are hundreds and hundreds (maybe thousands?) of license plates all over the walls. 

 

There are four states missing:

Do you have a license plate from any of these states?  If you do, and you want to donate it to a very cool old barbershop, drop me a note (see the ‘contact me’ tab up at the top of my blog).  I’d sure love to help him complete his collection!

Here’s Paul, the barber, standing by this great 100 year-old barber chair in which my father was reclined for his shave.  Paul and his shop have been written about in the newspapers.  They’re sort of local legends.  Behind him you can see some of the memorabilia he’s put on display. 

Of course, Paul, my dad, and I HAD to do a foot picture (okay, yes, I made them do it).  This was taken on the foot support of the very cool 100 year-old barber chair.

And finally, while out driving with my pops, Pikes Peak looked amazing, so I shot a picture through my windshield while driving.  Breathtaking, really.

And that was my short afternoon out with my pops!  His computer has been down for some time and he hasn’t read my blog for awhile.  I put in a lot of pictures in this post for him.  For when he finally gets all caught up…

Thanks for visiting, Dad.  Sure enjoyed having you here.  Come again very soon.  You’ll probably needing another really great shave soon!  😉

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