Rocky's Barbershop

Everyother saturday morning my dad would dissapear for a few hours. I always wondered where he went so one day I asked my mom. "Your dad is going to get a haircut" she told me.
I found this odd and for a year I wondered to myself such things as why did dad go somewhere to get a haircut? My mom afterall was a liscensed cosmetologist and did a fine job of cutting my hair. Why did it take so long? Did they cut each hair individually?
Finally around the age of six I decided that it was time to satisfy my curiosity about Dad's bi-weekly saturday morning ritual so I did the unthinkable...I asked to go along. My dad chuckled and said "Well, you could stand to get your ears lowered a bit (a common phrase for the time apparently meaning that my hair was getting long) and I suppose it's time you see how a man gets a haircut. C'mon." I was ecstatic. Dad referred to me as a man! I'm pretty sure I grew a couple of inches that day in my mind.
We pulled up to Rocky's on North Hale St just in time for Dad to get "the last good parking spot". Dad checked the rearview and backed 181 inches of American Motor Company's finest engineering into a 190 inch parking spot...Dad was a master of parallel parking! As we walked up to the door I looked up at the dizzying barber pole, a never ending swirl of red and white. The sign on the the steel framed glass door was still swinging back and forth from being flipped to the side that said open when we walked in. I was greeted by a large wooden Indian and a 12 inch black and white Philco television complete with balls of tinfoil wrapped around the rabbit ear antennas hung in the corner. The Great Outdoors World of Virgil Ward was just coming on. I can still hear the theme song in my head sometimes "From the lakes of Northern Canada to the Gulf of Mexico...wherever fish are biting that's where I'm gonna go..."
"Mornin Rock" my dad said. "My boy needs a cut". That was the day I learned of the wonderful feeling of a steaming hot white towel on your face and although I didnt even have peach fuzz on my chin yet I had my first shave too! Different men began coming in sitting in the waiting area...drinking coffee and sayin how if they had all the fancy equipment that Virgil had they'd be catchin fish like that too. It was an ice cold Royal Crown soda for me in a 10oz glass bottle while my dad took his turn in Rocky's chair. I argued with a man named Chester over which was better for catchin Northern Pike, a Johnson Silver Minnow with a pork trailer or a Red Devil spoon in red and white...we never settled that one.
All too soon 3 hours had passed and Dad said it was about time we were gettin on home. Two weeks from saturday could not come fast enough. I had been introduced to "How men get a haircut" and I was hooked.