When I was first old enough to sit in a barber chair, I was never truly frightened. I was told — around Christmas trees, at Thanksgiving dinner table and garden parties — that I did not scream or cry. Good boy.
Stoically (not a word used in my neighborhood), I sat there with my eyes closed, hearing the clipping of the scissors, the whirring of the big black fan in the corner, and the conversation between my father and “Joe.”
Joe, the family and neighborhood barber, operated alone. His name was Joe, and that’s the only name I ever called him; he was just “Joe the barber.” I don’t think I had ever known his last name.
The only funny story I have about Joe was a family one.
I was dating Rosemary DeBranco then and was always broke.
I went in one day, sat reading for a minute, and when the only one customer left, I whispered, “Joe, could you lend me two bucks, or maybe only one, or half a buck?”
Joe Richards of Winslow cuts J.P. Devine’s hair, as he’s done for the past 37 years or so. Photo courtesy of J.P. Devine
Joe folded his last cover and quietly, with a smile, replied, “You know your brothers hit on me every Friday.”
Then he added, “and they still owe me about 20 bucks.”
Well, here I am, all these years later, after haircuts in Japan, Okinawa, New York City and eight other America states later, in a brand new, shiny Waterville, getting my still-full head of hair trimmed by a new “Joe” the barber.
Here, my barber is Joe Richards of Winslow, Maine, who has been cutting my silver locks since they were black with strings of gray.
Yes, Joe a “stylist,” has been my “Joe the barber” for 37 years.
His story: In 1973 Joe went to get his hair cut by his Uncle Frank in downtown Atlanta at the “Lions’ Den” barber shop in Peach Tree Plaza.
After months of drifting around, “Uncle Frank” growled, “You gotta go to barber school and come to work for me. I need help.”
My new “Joe” found a barber school in a rundown poor section of Atlanta, that gave free haircuts to the homeless. Nine months later, he graduated, took his diploma with the ink still wet, and went to work for “Uncle Frank.”
“At the time, I had a girlfriend, Susan, from Maine (now his wife),” Joe explains, “who said, ‘I’m going back to Maine, you coming?”
In Waterville, Joe found work at The Village Barbers in 1976 and took his diploma, new scissors and went to work for Ron St. Amand.
Soon after, St. Amand sold out to the new kid in town, and “Headquarters” at 113 Main St. was born.
From this “Joe,” I got more than “a couple of bucks.”
Joe Richards, hearing that I couldn’t find a reasonable house painter, sent me his, who got the job done.
When I told Joe, that after three years of COVID, we couldn’t find a wonderful cleaning woman, Joe “the barber” made a call on the spot and got me “Dina,” who now cleans our house.
As of today, I have been sitting in the new Joe’s chair for 37 years and will probably get my last haircut there.
Thank you to both “Joes.”
J.P. Devine is a Waterville writer.
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