J.lip
I think I’ve told you about my mima and her profession in the educational field. How she became the school’s barber and disciplinarian at Betsy’s primary and secondary school for preteen and teen girls. If I haven’t, then I’ll try and direct you to the story I wrote about it.
But for now, I must tell you about the time I went to my grandmother’s house at the tail end of summer. I had to postpone our regular date to visit because I had to watch my baby sister as my mom and dad went on vacation. Being the oldest and all, I was expected to step to the plate and care for her.
But when my parents got back, I headed straight for my grandmother’s place. The old coot looked really good for her age, her head was completely bald now as all her hair had finally given way to the elements and my granny didn’t want to wait for the rest of her short hair to fall out so she just walked into a barbershop that was close to her apartment and had the barber shaved it off.
”I for one am glad my hair left when it did”,my mima rubbed her smooth head,”Now, I know what those girls at camp felt like, not having to deal with the burden of hair weighing down their heads and all”
”Camp?”I asked,”I never knew you went to camp in the summer”
”There’s a lot you don’t know about me”,Gran laughed heartily,”And I didn’t go to camp as a little girl but I was offered to go to camp Meadowlark to become its senior barber lady”
”Ooh”,I awed, at this point I enjoyed grandma’s tales,”Do tell”
The story starts in at the tail end of the spring months, just before the school year ended. A teacher, Mrs. Applebaum came into my gran’s barbershop. She asked for a cut and as my elder was caping her up, the teach offered her a job for the summer. See, Mrs Applebaum ran a summer camp for girls and boys of all ages to come to. It taught survival skills and teamwork, the emphasis was on making friends and memories with your peers.
My mima asked what her role would entail and the lady teacher explained that there was a strict dress code at the camp like there was at the school and a barber for the girls was needed. The smile on my grandma’s face grew wide as she accepted the job graciously.
So after the school year, my mima drove to the camp and took residency there. Camp Meadowlark did not open on the first day of June but the second it did, six buses filled with boys and girls of all ages came. The boys were separated from the girls and taken to a different barbershop to get their summer haircuts, the girls on the other hand were taken to my grandmother’s shop.
The camp split up the barbershops for some reason and grandma thought it was dumb, she didn’t mind cutting a few gents’ hair. But, alas, she was confined to only cut girls’ hair. There were a few recognizable faces in the barbershop and they definitely needed a trim or buzz. The rule was that all hair must be cut above the collar and couldn’t cover the eyes in any capacity. So even a girl with a short, shaggy cut was due for a turn in the chair.
My grandmother didn’t have organization of groups of girls based on age and not everybody could sit in the waiting chairs, most of them had to sit outside on the grass and wait their turn. When gran was done shearing a girl, she chose another girl at random from the girls sitting in the waiting chairs. And as a final shock to the barber lady, she was obligated to give each girl the specific style each individual girl wanted.
There were some familiar faces and of those some, some of them wanted the classic buzzed down hairstyle. But like back at Betsy’s, there were some girls who opted for an alternative haircut. My grandma had her fair share of bob and pixie requests, also flattops and pompadours. It was a flurry of hairstyle requests in my mima’s shop.
My grandmother kinda had a game plan going in, she asked all the young girls; about first graders to eighth graders, to come sit in the waiting chairs first. Complying with the request, all the really young girls came in and took a seat in the waiting chairs. There were less young girls than older girls, my gran thought it was a great ratio as she didn’t have to do many young heads.
When all the younger girls had their hair cut, the older girls filed in groups of eight: seven to sit in the waiting chairs and one taking the barber chair. The first older girl, my grandmother remembered doing the hair off, was a sixteen year old black girl from Luisiana. Her hair was in its natural form but my mima wasn’t intimidated. See, she trained in all hair types even though she didn’t have to or was mandatory back in those days. From what she told me, my grandma didn’t care what kind of hair a girl had on her head as long as it could be cut.
Anyway, the girl in the chair, when my mima had her caped up, asked my elder if she knew how to give her finger waves. That kind of style relied on a relaxer of some sort and my grandmother was only given her tools and her shop for camp. She told the girl she didn’t have relaxer or any product that would be beneficial for natural hair. The girl sighed and asked to just be buzzed down classically.
That haircut, my grandma could do. She got straight to work, buzzing off the girls coily tresses until it was all very short. The girl resembled a famous actress without all that hair hiding her chiseled face and my mima told the girl that which made her smile a little.
From what my grandmother told me, the group of girls she was assigned to give haircuts to was very diverse. Caucasian girls mingled with negro, her words, and Asians of all types: like Korean, Japanese, Chinese, and Indian girls. It was all pretty surreal back in those days. She told me she heard many a story from each girl, ranging from comedic memories to hard life upbringings. Mima would always nod but keep her opinions to herself: she was only paid to cut hair.
When lunch time came, my grandma was three quarters the way done with her work, but like Betsy’s Academy, she finished up the girl she was working on and paused her work for lunch. The lunch time at Camp Meadowlark was a bit longer than at Betsy’s but as soon as it was done, the uncut girls were back in the barbershop.
And my grandma was officially done at one o’clock, she swept up the cut hair, which was a lot, and tied them off in garbage bags to go to the bin. That was my grandma’s least favorite part of the job.
The boys of the camp looked very different than the girls, unlike them, the boys had their sides completely buzzed down to the skin and their top cut short to an inch. My grandma was furious at the boys barber and went to confront him. He was a jolly Italian-American, his reasoning for giving the boys the same, short haircut was that that was his only haircut he specialized in.
My mima was still angry but could see the reasoning and disagree heavily with it. She offered to teach the man some new boys’ haircuts and he shrugged and said,”Okay”
So for the next few times a boy would waltz right into the boy’s barbershop, my grandmother taught the man how to everything from a clean shave to a classic gent’s cut. The boy’s barber thanked my grandma and went on to continue the practices.
About two weeks into the camp’s yearly run, summer sports were announced to begin and requirements to participate were given out. The uniforms for said sorts were supplied by the camp and any girl will hair longer than a classic buzz down was told to report to the barbershop for the proper haircut. There was a handful of campers that desired to do sports but had the incorrect cut. They all rushed into the barbershop to get their heads buzzed.
My grandmother didn’t see why the girlies had to have such short hair stubble to participate in sports but she had no qualms buzzing down the girls’ head. To her, it was just a little bit more work. She had all the girls’ heads buzzed down to a zero-zero buzz cut by three in the afternoon.
To my mima’s surprise, Mrs Applebaum came to her one day and as my grandmother was giving the teacher a trim; the woman asked my grandma to coach the girl’s swimming and canoeing team. It was quite a proposal and my grandma accepted it with honors. See, my mima was a heck of swimmer back in high school and knew a thing or two about the sport.
Canoeing, on the other hand, was a bit tricky to master. Luckily, most of the canoeing girls at camp were prodigies at the sport only needed slight corrections now and then. They were smooth sailing by the time the first race came. The team won the race against the boys that day.
