THURSDAY, OCTOBER 3,2002
COVER STORY
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN = 9
Barbers
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 8
Shop, 924 Massachusetts St., waiting for the next round of customers to walk in. All they got was a reporter looking for an old-fashioned shave.
"Sorry, we don't do that any more," Franklin Sr., said.
A shave and hot towel facials are no longer cost-effective for barbershops, he said, and people weren't willing to pay $8 for a quick procedure.
The fifth owners since it opened in 1927, the father and son co-owners said they loved what they did.
"We especially love cutting long hair off," Franklin Sr., said. "There's nothing like a short haircut."
Considered unique meeting places by their owners, barbershops take on a conversational life of their own, mediated by barbers as they cut, trim and comb.
"My father once told me that to be a good barber, you had to know a little about a lot of things," he said.
Among their limitless conversation topics lies the secret history of barbers.
Larry Franklin Jr., said the swirled red, white and blue poles dated to the days of the Old West, when barbers did more than cut hair.
"If you had a gunshot or arrow wound or needed a tooth pulled, you went to the barber," he said. "They always had hot water and towels on-hand."
The stripes were symbols of the barbershops hanging their clean and bloodied rags out to dry.
"You would just look for these towels swirling in the wind," Franklin Jr., said.
As for the blue stripe, he said it was added for patriotic reasons in the early 1900s.
Zach Straus/Kansan
Rex Porter jokes with his client Jay Goodbinder, Overland Park senior, at Downtown Barbershop. The two were discussing the Giants-Twins game yesterday afternoon.
Scott Roberts, Arma junior, said the barbershops in Lawrence were a nice change from the shopping mall he went to back home.
As surrounding shops change through the years and restaurants come and go, the barbershops on Massachusetts Street have stayed the same.
"It's a unique experience," he said. "It's a bunch of guys sitting around talking sports, watching TV and reading the paper."
Amyx had an additional explanation for his longevity as a barber.
"It's a good time," he said. "The jokes get better every year."
— Edited by Nicole Roché
Zach Straus/Kansan
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