The Barber

My grandaddy, Thomas Clinard, was a barber. He could barely read or write but he could cut hair. His speciality was the flat top, but he somehow managed to keep my bangs perfectly trimmed when I was a little girl.

Between “your hair is your glory” Pentecostal Grandmother, pictured here, and her husband, my Barber Grandaddy, I had some epic hair moments as a child.

Grandaddy occupied the middle chair at The Razor’s Edge, which was the barber shop he co-owned with Donald Spry. Donald occupied the chair by the window, and the chair on the other side of my grandaddy rotated people a few times. But Grandaddy and Donald worked together in the shop, 5 days a week, every week, same chairs, for 58 years.

I have fond memories of his barber shop, which was on Washington Street, right off the downtown square. It was a manly space. I knew I was only allowed in there because I was family, escorted by my mom who was also allowed in only because she was family, and I knew wouldn’t be going in there at all after I reached a certain age. (I did, a few times, as a grown up, just to say hi to grandaddy. But I knew better than to stay too long. Women, as a general rule, didn’t belong there. Just like men didn’t belong anywhere near the beauty shop. Wonder why I took on “gender studies” as a cognate area in my PhD program.) There was always an outdated Alabama football calendar hanging on the wall, because it had Bear Bryant’s picture on it. You could get a gumball out of the machine if you had a quarter, or a Coca-Cola out of the cooler if you had two quarters.

The barber shop has since been repurposed into an ale house. I stopped in for a beer on one of my last visits to Athens. The owners are incredibly friendly, have done a phenomenal job with preserving and updating the space, and created a much-needed gathering spot downtown. There was a book club getting a little rowdy in the back when I was there. Y’all should stop in for a drink if you find yourself passing through town, or if you live there. I’ll go back, often. But I expect I will always have trouble reconciling the barber shop and my teetotaler grandfather who worked there and the fact that today I can go in what was a barber shop for a wine slushie in a plastic to-go cup in a town that didn’t even sell alcohol until 2003.

I digress. My grandaddy knew everyone in town. 

me & Grandaddy, at my wedding

I loved Grandaddy, and I know he loved me and was really proud of me. But honestly? We weren’t that close. We didn’t spend too much time together by ourselves, only when the family got together, which was still at minimum weekly. I sort of don’t blame him for not taking too much time alone with me; can you imagine taking a child like me fishing? I’d ask way too many questions and ruin the day.

Instead, I spent a lot of time observing how he interacted with everyone. Anytime we went out to eat on Sunday after church, or went anywhere around town, he talked to everyone around us. He was ultimately a storyteller, whose business depended on relationships. What I learned most from him was how to be a friend. We couldn’t go anywhere without someone flagging him down to talk. He was a good man who genuinely enjoyed his friends, of which there were many.

Grandaddy died in 2018, at the age of 80. His health failed him, but even after he left full-time work because he wasn’t able to stand up straight for long periods of time, he continued to cut hair in his shed out back for a few loyal customers who missed him, and his stories. Someone helped him move his chair and tools out there, and he carried on like normal for anyone who wanted to stop by.

The town turned out for his funeral, as is the case when someone in a small town dies. We were all sad, obviously. But I won’t ever forget the look of true heartbreak on Donald’s face. He’d lost his best friend. I knew they were close, but I didn’t get just how close until I saw him at the funeral. To work with someone for that long, with no falling out, raising families together and running a business together - I just can’t even imagine what he had to be feeling. The look on Donald’s face just gutted me. As someone who feels like I’m on track to have more friends than I deserve falling into the “friend for my whole life” category, my perspective shifted that day. I felt so sorry for his loss, as much as the loss to our family. And I tried really hard not to think about my life-long friendships ever, ever ending.

Anyway, the funeral was preached by the Pentecostal preacher, at the Pentecostal church, where my grandmother is still a member. I sat in the front row with the rest of my family and mentally prepared to be told how quickly I was going to burn in hell once I got there. For those unfamiliar with the Pentecostal church: Pentecostal funerals generally allow the pastors to remind us all about the prophecies of the Book of Revelation in an effort to Save Us from Eternal Damnation. It wouldn’t be weird for someone to speak in tongues, if the spirit so moved them to do so. I was dreading the whole sermon. My guard was totally up, and I just wanted to make it through the day to move on with my life. I have plenty of tricks for bottling up emotions and not letting them out until I’m good and ready.

But the preacher surprised me. He talked about how he was relatively new to Athens, and when he and his wife moved there, they knew no one. He said Grandaddy and Grandmother were among the very first people to have them come over for dinner and spend time with them. They made them feel welcome. Grandaddy took him fishing. The preacher was in awe of just how many people around town knew him, and how he seemed to have a story about, and for, everyone, all the time. He told several stories about fun times he and my grandfather had together. No one spoke in tongues.

About halfway into his sermon, I noticed a commotion on the side of the stage. The Pentecostals do have a flair for the dramatic, so I was a little worried about what was happening.

Unbeknownst to all of us, my cousin Halston had let a church member into the shed that morning to load up Grandaddy’s barber’s chair in a truck, and take it to the church.

Someone quietly rolled out that barber chair - the one he’d sat in or stood behind for 58 years - right in front of his coffin, as the preacher talked.

I think I stopped breathing for a minute, and got even more still than I already was, just staring at the chair. 

He continued, and I’m paraphrasing slightly: “I used to think you needed a stage, a pulpit, and a 350 member congregation coming to you every week in order for the Lord to use you to do his work. But Thomas taught me that all you really need is a chair. He influenced more people from behind that chair than we’ll ever know.”

And with that, I totally lost it. We all did. 

I thanked the preacher afterwards for such a kind message, and let him know how much I appreciated what he said. I am crying, still, thinking about it. Not only was it a very sweet thing to say about my grandaddy, it had implications in my life, too. 

**

At some point, I started to believe the lie that I needed to be busy to prove my worth; that I was only important because I was able to do very specific things for specific people from behind my own little pulpit inside the classroom to help move them forward. I believed I was only worthy to the extent that I was able to help someone or do something useful for someone.

In my professional life as a professor, this translated to something like this: a near daily ego boost from a packed calendar. Teaching and advising students, and solving really big problems for them that stood between them and their degrees. Successfully talking down an angry mama because her Kevin didn’t get the class he wanted on the first day of registration, who started our call yelling at me but ended it with a laugh and a genuine “God bless you and thank you for your help.” Building a schedule that helped faculty somewhat maintain a balance between home and work. Signing all the forms and taking all the calls and reassuring everyone who stopped by that we would be just fine in a toxic work environment. Volunteering for all the committees. (Oh, the committees.) Teaching classes and grading papers and assigning assignments and would you look at how busy and important I am? I started to believe that was where all my self worth came from. And at home? I overcompensated for my emotional distance needed to spend that much energy at work by doing even more: making complicated dinners every night (that, honestly, no one but me even cared about), taking on most all the daily chores despite having a partner who is quite capable and readily available to share them, and getting others in my home anything they asked for, anytime, to show how much I loved them. It became impossible to deal with the angry Kevin’s mama’s of the world, and then coming home to be fully present to play with my kid. I really thought: I am lovable and worthy as a human because I do all of these things.

Talk about a totally false belief. Being busy does not equal being worthy.

Walking away from that life, and changing my mindset, requires me to reconsider what I’d previously defined as influence and worth.

I think often about my grandaddy’s funeral, and the pastor’s words: you don’t need a pulpit; “sometimes all you need is a chair.”

You can replace “chair” with so many things.

Sometimes all you need is a blog.

Or 15 minutes of undivided attention with a kid.

Or a group text. Or a card sent in the mail.

Sometimes all you need is one really good friend, by your side for 5, 10, or 58 years.

What I’ve decided, for now, is that all you ever really need is to recognize your own light, and know when and where to shine it. Whether you shine it from a pulpit or chair or front of a classroom or behind a blog doesn’t matter as much as the fact that you do it.

The good news is, you can shine that light from wherever you are. You don’t need a pulpit. Find your chair, your boat & fishing rods, or dinner table, and carry on.