Every day, my mom would get up and get me ready for school. I would watch Bugs Bunny cartoons on the Ray Rayner show while my mom fixed me and my dad Cream of wheat or oatmeal, then comb my hair, get me dressed then give me to my dad to walk me to school.
My dad and I would go out of our front door, walk 20 feet to another door that led to the back of my dad's dark barbershop. He would unlock the heavy main door, unlock the burglar bars and walk me two blocks to school. He then would come back home and open the barbershop for the day. We lived in the back of that barbershop from the time I was a baby until I was 11 years old and my mom had had enough.
Henry Flowers' barbershop was my playground, my clubhouse, my support, my social life and my Black culture education for almost 11 years.
When I came home from school, the place would be busy with people, mostly men, getting their hair cut, smoking, talking, and sometimes just hanging out. There was a little black and white tv in the far corner that was on all day. There was a big old fashioned shoe shine chair against the wall, and when I was small, there would be boys shining shoes of the men who wanted it. My friends and I would climb up in that chair and watch that little black and white tv in the corner.
I did my homework on one of the two front platforms in front of the large windows. Us kids would keep our little games and worn out playing cards on these platforms, along with a couple of dry houseplants that never seemed to die. I remember playing checkers with bottle tops because we had lost all of the checkers. We would be Orange vs Coke, or Grape vs Sprite. We had plenty of bottle tops because my dad sold pop and potato chips.
There was a big old industrial heater in the front that would heat the place up nicely. We had one in the back where we lived, too. I burned myself on the heater when I was really small, I don't remember, but I DO remember having a big scar on my upper right arm for most of my life. It's still there, I can barely see it. In the winter my friends and I would go outside and play in the snow and come back in with cold, wet gloves and hats and put them on the big industrial heater to dry. Back then all our gloves were made of wool or cheap cotton knit, and they would steam and sizzle and just cook on that heater!
My Dad. He was a great father to me and to the rest of the neighborhood. He always had teenage boys working in the shop helping him sweep the floors every night for money. First there was Dalton Mack and Micheal Jenkins when I was really small. I remember them. There were a couple more but I can't remember. Then it was Bobby Ray and I think Michael Eddings, or maybe someone else. My first job was in my dad's barbershop cleaning the ashtrays and straightening the magazines on the table by the chairs where customers would wait. When I got a little older, I had to do that plus clean his two sinks. Then, by the time I was in 5th grade, I had to sell his potato chips and other candy, gum and stuff that he started to sell to the kids afterschool. I got paid, too, but he made me save most of it so when it was time to go somewhere, I had a little money in my pocket.
My Dad.
In the summers I spent all day either in the shop with him or outside playing with my friends in the neighborhood. My dad was strict, though, and I couldn't go too far from the front of the shop where he could see me. It was a few years before I could go around the corner, across the alley to where Denise and her family lived. If I was gone too long and he hadn't seen me in a while, he would come running out of the barbershop in his little barber coat with a comb in his hand yelling "hey hey! get back up here!" I would be so embarrassed but I'm glad he wanted to keep me safe.My daddy used to play with me in the barbershop when business was slow. He played checkers and cards with me. He used to cut paper dolls out with me using my little kiddie scissors with the rounded ends. I thought he was so funny the way he would slowly take his time with the cuts, but after all, he was a barber and that was what he did.
TV time was usually around the little black and white in the corner with whoever was in the barbershop at the time including customers, kids and folks just hanging out. We watched Good Times, The Jeffersons, All in the Family, football, basketball, baseball, the Olympics. I watched Wide World of Sports and Soul Train. cartoons on Saturday morning. I watched all the afterschool specials and kids shows till the news came on at 5 pm in that barbershop.
All the men argued about politics, sports, cars, the weather, everything while we listened. I learned to play all the regular games with the neighborhood kids in that shop. I learned chess, checkers, blackjack, gin rummy 500. I got better at tunk and pitty pat (my aunt taught me those), and somehow, I learned to play spades. We played connect four, trouble, monopoly, life.
