Chuck’s Barber Shop

by Doug Guido

Sometime in the early ‘60’s, maybe even the late ‘50’s, my father made a seemingly inconsequential job change, switching from a clerk in the county’s Clerk of the Court, to a position in the newly formed Civil Defense department. His new responsibilities took him out of the office and into the various properties the county owned, scattered around the Detroit metropolitan area. He was tasked with stocking some of these sites with emergency food rations and other supplies needed in the event of nuclear war. Once that task was completed, he became responsible for disposing of no longer needed county equipment, in one case, a large water tanker truck.

Water trucks are used by rural fire departments, often manned by volunteers, for fires outside of the urban services – meaning, you have to bring the water to the fire. Still do in many parts of the world. One such place in need of a tanker truck was Northville Township, a rural community on the northwestern edge of Wayne County. An aptly named fellow – Bud – was the townships ‘buyer’, and dad and he consummated a deal for the truck. In the process, they became friendly such that Bud mentioned that there was a nice piece of residential acreage for sale for a fair price. At some point, probably early ’62, dad bought five acres of rural farmland, with a heretofore unknown desire to build a home.

Father Gene was a city boy through and through, born and raised in Detroit, on Connors Ave no less. Where this impulse to buy acreage in the country and build a home came from remains unknown; I was too young at the time, (12 in ’62), to ask, and he didn’t explain it, as he was a man of few words. (Curiously, the property backed up to the Maybury Sanatorium, a shuttered tuberculosis facility, where his mother had died of TB in ’29. He never mentioned this either.) I was busy wondering how I would adjust to living on a gravel road, with no curbs for curb baseball. But build a house he did – with the help of a contractor – and we moved in in the spring of ’63.

And it was quite an adjustment, coming from the city to the country. I was used to walking to school – now I shivered in the dark on the corner of 8 Mile, waiting for the bus to come. The only school I’d ever gone to was Kindergarten through 8th grade. Now, I was in a junior high, where my new classmates seemed older and wiser. And on my first day there, I learned that gym class was no longer about changing into your gym shoes; no, now it was about changing clothes and showering with other boys, a first!

I eventually acclimated to my new surrounds, enjoying the open space of the country and developing an appreciation of nature. Along with my neighbor and new friend Mark, we explored the deserted grounds of the Sanatorium and the eerie quiet of the empty buildings. There were some designed as fairy tale themed cottages for the children that spent the last days of their lives there, imparting a serious reverence to the place.

That fall, I entered the ninth grade, attending the new high school on the hill. My new life was going pretty well until Dad interrupted my happiness.

“I found you a job today,” he announced at dinner, which was the one time in a 24 hour day we were sure to see him.

My Dad was a worker, if nothing else. A product of the Great Depression, I’m told that he had four jobs when I was born – one full, and three part time. And after we moved to Northville, he got on with the harness race track in town, The Downs, as a bartender. After working his 8 to 5, he’d come home for dinner, then head off to work at the track for another 3-4 hours, on his feet the whole time. This he did for the entire 14 years he lived there.

“A what?” I responded dumbly. I had only recently turned 14 and had never had a job before.

“At the barber shop, where I get my haircut, they need a shoeshine boy. I said you’d do it.”

And so my working career began at Chuck’s Barber Shop on West Main in downtown Northville.

My career as a shoeshine boy started off inauspiciously. The proprietor, Chuck was a kind and gracious fellow; I don’t recall ever hearing him raise his voice. He always wore a white coat, like something a doctor would wear, matching his serious air. And to this day, Chuck had the most unique laugh of anyone I’ve met – while cutting hair, when the customer said something funny, Chuck would stop cutting, bend at the waist and hold that pose, scissors in one hand, comb in the other, for a half minute or so in a silent laugh – no sound!

Chuck’s partner in cosmetology was Max, a nearly bald guy who also wore a white coat, but somehow he looked like a gunslinger in it. Totally different guy than Chuck – loud, animated, knowledgeable. While I interacted with both men equally, my repartee with Max was always more edgy, sometimes contentious. While I would occasionally give Chuck a shoeshine, Max, for whatever reason, always put it off; he said that I could owe him one.

I’d show up at the shop after school, around 4 pm. Being my Dad’s son, I found things to like about the experience. For starters, I was around men each afternoon, where bullshit and entertaining tall tales were laid on thick. Probably out of respect for Chuck, there wasn’t much cursing or crude talk, but lots of hunting and fishing stories. Both men were avid outdoorsmen, even if they didn’t get out much. As proof, the shop had numerous deer racks hanging on the walls. One of the regular features of the day was to watch Mort Neff’s outdoor show on TV at about 5 pm. Hair cutting became noticeably slower during the show. Another feature, not as regular, was watching folks, (drunks), stumble out of the bar across the street. Nominally called The Winners Circle, a nod to the race track, it was known as the Greeks to locals. Little did I know then that in about eight years, I too would stumble out of said establishment.

One day, one of my classmates and his posse came in, ostensibly to visit, but Daley seemed to have mayhem on his mind. As Chuck’s was a smoking environment, (weren’t they all? Back then it seemed like everyone smoked.), he had these floor canister ashtrays that had sand in the tray to stub out butts. Daley promptly stuck a couple of firecrackers in the sand and struck a match. I blew it and another one out before Max told Daley to beat it.

As I recall, I charged .25 for a shoeshine, .50 for boots. Men would usually give a tip, so I’d often come home with $4-5 in my pocket. When I came in one day, Max had a sinister grin on his face and said a customer had dropped off a pair of boots for me to clean and shine. After he confirmed that I charged .50 for boots, he brought the pair out of the back; they were cowboy boots covered in horse shit.

“Okay chief, do your best,” Max said with an evil chuckle. An hour later I finished the job, for which I got a dollar, the most miserable dollar I ever earned.

At the end of the school year I left Chuck’s; Tom, a classmate I had come to know, suggested I become a caddy at the local golf course his parents belonged to, Meadowbrook. The thought of working outdoors on a golf course had its own appeal and, once Dad approved the change, I told Chuck that I was quitting. As I packed up my stuff and pushed the chair into the back room, I said my goodbyes and headed out to the alley where my bicycle was parked. Just as I was getting on, Max come out and yelled:

“Hey, aren’t you forgetting something?”

“No,” I answered, “what?”

Max looked at me expectantly.

“No,” I repeated. “I’ve got everything,” and rode off.

It wasn’t until years later that it came to me, that I owed Max a shoeshine and hadn’t paid up. Why he waited until I was out the door, literally and psychically, to remind me, I’ll never know. But I’ll bet when Max walked back inside empty handed, Chuck bent over in his silent laugh!

Originally from Detroit, Doug Guido graduated from Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, after cramming a 4-year education into 6 years. Subsequently he set off on a ‘Siddartha’ journey through North America in a ’64 Corvair Greenbriar camper van, covering 20,000 miles in six months. After arriving in Houston Texas, he entered the homebuilding field in the roaring ’70’s and ended up in Tampa in 1981. He has written short stories over the past thirty years, reflecting on various incidents in his life that he hopes are entertaining. His self-published memoir, I’m Only Living Once, is available in paperback on Amazon books.