Saturday, January 28, 2017

BACK IN TIME

My cousin Tommy keeps sending me memorabilia from the 50's. Most of it gets a quick delete but a 1957 menu from Woolworth's brought back a flood of memories for me.

When I was four or five years old, my mother would take me to the local barber shop every six weeks or so for a haircut. My reward for sitting still was a vanilla milkshake from the small family restaurant adjacent to the barber's. I can still remember the whirring sound of the blender as it mixed the shake in a tall silver cylinder. Sometimes the server made too much for one fountain glass and served me the extra in a small Coke glass. That was special. Like Woolworth's, the price was 25 cents, the same as my haircut.

Come to think of it, my mother would get a milkshake too, her reward for persevering in the smoky barber shop.

Regrettably, all good things come to an end for when my brothers were born a few years later, my milkshake days were over. My dad bought a do-it-yourself barbering kit and took great pleasure in lining up his three sons for brush cuts that took no more than five minutes a head.

Good memories, good milkshakes and some really bad haircuts!


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