A few days ago, I was strolling down Main Street when I walked past an old-fashioned barbershop. It had every dusty artifact associated with first-class nostalgia that a girl could desire, starting with a glassed-in barber pole spiraling red, white, and blue stripes that was topped with a chrome dome.

As I stood on the sidewalk staring through the plate glass window, I could see that the shop’s interior was just about as plain brown wrapper as it could get: Metal chairs were lined up against one wall, in front of which were low tables heaped with magazines. Four barber chairs – as well as sinks, counters, mirrors, combs, tonics, and other tools of the trade – ran along the opposite wall

The back of the shop was plastered with posters of hairstyles dating back to the 1950s, including enough buzz cuts to satisfy the army recruiter in the building next door. Similar but smaller pictures were cellophane-taped to the shop’s front window, all so faded by the sun that the models’ hair and faces were varying shades of blue.

Gazing through that window brought back sweet memories of taking my little brothers to get haircuts in the town where we grew up. I remembered old men sitting in folding chairs and flipping through Outdoor Life or Field and Stream while waiting for their turns at the clippers. There was a wood floor, the piquant smell of aftershave, the low murmur of conversation, a radio playing Perry Como or Frank Sinatra in the background, and my brothers fighting over whose turn it was to read Superman or The Green Hornet. Just a few years later, the quarrels would be over Spiderman and The Fantastic Four.

The entire barbershop experience, as I remember it, was that the haircuts themselves were of significantly less importance than the quality and quantity of the reading material.

And that got me to thinking about my own youthful experiences with hair.

As a dedicated tomboy I hated getting my hair done, and I considered hairspray about as logical as wearing a girdle on my head. There were times, however, when, despite my completely justifiable objections, a visit to the beauty parlor had its earthly rewards. And of all those rewards, the best, bar none, involved reading matter. This included Motion Picture, Silver Screen, and Screen Stories magazines.

Never, ever, ever would I have purchased such trashy periodicals for myself. No sir. Not me. Doing so would have made me feel like a brainless bimbo who considered “Beach Blanket Bingo” a form of high art. I read Steinbeck. I read Dostoyevsky. I read A Tale of Two Cities and Moby Dick. Which is just another way of saying that not only was I an unapologetic hypocrite, I was also a snob.

Because there was absolutely nothing I enjoyed more than thumbing through photo-illustrated stories about Audrey Hepburn, Gary Cooper, Deborah Kerr, William Holden, Grace Kelley, and Cary Grant. What they did. Whom they did it with. Whom they married. Whom they were divorcing. What they wore.

Any beauty parlor worthy of its revolting pink décor had stacks of such magazines scattered on tables and shelves around the store. New ones. Old ones. Tattered ones. Glossy ones hot off the press. This alone made getting my hair done so rewarding that I willingly subjected myself to the gagging smells, the incessant chatter, and the looming menace of a helmet hair dryer.

Back to the barbershop.

Having had my fill of happy reminiscences, I tore myself away from the window and continued down the block to the restaurant where I had planned to meet two friends, Diane and Jerry, for brunch. After recounting to them the conversation that, until then, I had been having inside my own head, Diane reminded me that beauty parlors of that era also provided heartthrob weeklies like True Romance and Thrilling Love. And Jerry recalled that his barbershop experiences included tattered issues of True Detective, Jungle, Men’s Adventure, and Weird Tales magazines – all featuring pulse pounding covers with half-naked women being menaced by Nazis, monsters, or thugs.

Then Jerry brought us back to the present.

“For years,” he said, “I couldn’t stand getting a haircut because the only things unisex salons had to read were Travel and Leisure or Southern Living magazines, and I hate them both.” He nibbled on his bagel for a few seconds before adding, “But a year ago, I reconnected with my roots and discovered a dumpy old barbershop a block from the Ft. Hamilton Army Base. Now I get my haircut once a week.”

Jerry didn’t have to explain why.

“Girlie magazines,” I said with authority.

Jerry rolled his eyes and gave me a happily evil grin.

So, there you have it. The literature that keeps us shaved, permed, trimmed, shaped, and beautiful. All of the magazines from the 1960s have disappeared. But we can still find trashy publications like In Touch, OK, Star, and Us to feed our appetites for celebrity gossip. And I recently read that, after a five-year absence, Playboy Magazine is back in print.

Which reminds me. Yesterday, the only reading materials lying around at the salon where I had my hair done were back issues of National Geographic and Forbes.

My hair looks great, but ... well, I really have no choice.

I will definitely have to change salons.

Copyright © Shelly Reuben, 2025. Shelly Reuben’s books have been nominated for Edgar, Prometheus, and Falcon awards. For more about her writing, vibasit www.shellyreuben.com