Haircuts recycled

1960s price for a haircut: $2.50 (at a basic salon) to about $5 (at Vidal Sassoon's London salon, though there was a widespread—and false—rumor that the celebrated hairdresser charged $5,000 to give Mia Farrow her famous pixie haircut) Today's price: $14 (at Supercuts) to $125-$220 (at Frederic Fekkai, depending on the stylist) and up. What brings this up is the fact that my hair today costs $40 and I have a lot less hair at 70 than I did at 17. I remember the barber down at the end of my street has the standard revolving barber pole.

 Things have changed. When was the last time you saw a barber pole. I remember how the "Moder5n Hair Styling" poster in barber shop influenced me to get a "flattop." I hated my new haircut and could not wait for it to grow out. 

I remember the first time I did not have to use the booster chair was when I got my flat top. I remember walking into the shop and asking for a flat top.  I was grown up. No grown up, I paid for it and I didn't have to use the booster chair. 

 The next step in becoming a man at the barber shop was my choice of reading materials.  If you were "mature" enough you could take of of the tattered old copies of Playboy from the cabinet under the mirror. Until you got that special nod from the barber that you were "man enough" for Playboy you were stuck with Field and Stream, Popular Mechanics and National Geographic.