Category: Miscellaneous

Cookbooks are being sold by Mission Committee to help fund our mission projects. If you would like to purchase one or more for 15.00 each, please come by the church office.

Thursday, May 16, the Sojourners will load the bus at 7:15 a.m. to travel to Bethlehem First UMC. We will return in the late afternoon.

Theme this year is The Beverly Hillbillies. Costs is $12(Includes lunch +3.00 transportation).

Limited seating…Call Jane Neil ASAP to reserve a place

706-376-2442

I knew that Dorothy and I were not in Kansas any longer. . . . .

While Tracey was attending her conference at the Savannah Marriott, I was wondering around this beautiful city taking pictures, reading, and walking.  On Friday, my job was to find a place to get my hair cut.  I googled “hair cut places in Savannah” and found The Barber Pole on Bull street, just so happens beside Starbucks.  How convenient!  Needless to say, it was the happening place.  It opened at 10 so I got there early around 9:30 and was second in line.  By 10, there were nine people waiting with me.  Just down the street beside me was a smoking homeless man that smoked a cigarette the entire time I was there.  I had to wait in my place or I would have moved way down the list.  I also noticed a woman who I thought was talking on an ear-peace.  She was fussing loudly to whoever was on the other end of the line about the British, Germans, and the government watching all of us.  She kept looking at me and others sitting near her.  This heated conversation went on for 15 minutes then I realized that she was not talking on a phone, but just talking.  I pretended to look at my phone, trying not to make eye contact.  Occasionally, she would look at us and cuss about the “British invasion.”  I wanted to desperately tell her that my family tree was both British and Scottish, but I figured that it was of no use.  The business man beside me, a regular to the Barber Pole, muttered under his breath, “I’m glad you are sitting over there and not me!  She usually tries to hit me on these days.”  He then said something about Germans, British, or something about Star Trek, I could not understand it.  After that I decided to move closer to the now yelling homeless woman.  I’m assuming this is an everyday occurrence in front of the Barber Pole on Bull Street on Fridays.

Finally the sign was turned around and we all stumbled in.  We left the smoking homeless man and the ranting woman outside.  The business man was first followed by me and then a cadre of other characters representing all sorts of workers, business professionals, and students.

The haircut was somewhat uneventful.  I did, however, discover that my barber was named Clay and he was originally from Carrolton, GA.  He was forty-two years old and has two sons, one twenty-two years old and the other five.  His older son lives in an apartment with eight of his friends and works at a bar.  He’s just “finding himself.”  He wants to teach him to cut hair, but that may come later.  Clay has been in Savannah for six months and recently moved from Brunswick.  He just got custody of his five year old son and moved here to keep the youngster in his “familiar” daycare situation.  He loves cutting hair and …….  You get the picture, I learned a great deal about my barber.  His chair is near the window and there were many interesting things happening outside.  He had to keep turning my heard back to cut my hair.  He exclaimed, “You don’t want to get a crooked haircut.”  He was correct.  Every now and then the crazy woman would pass by the window and accuse passers’ by of being either British or German.  It was entertaining and because of it, I almost got a “crooked haircut.”

After he was done, I felt him put hot lather on my neck and ears.  He shaved my neck with a straight razor!  I have not had my neck shaved that way since I was ten years old in Moez Grizwell’s barber chair in Warrenton, GA.  Honestly, it brought back many memories.   Hot shaving cream from a dispenser has a distinctive feel and smell.  It took me back to my childhood.  The shop is much like the one I went to with my grandfather.  There was stuff everywhere and all walks of life were coming in to get a haircut.  Little did I expect to be catapulted back to my childhood.  I definitely had left Kansas, but was I in Warrenton, GA?

Smell is the most prolific sensor of memory, second only to touch and vision.  For just a few moments, I was back in Warrenton, sitting on a board in the huge barber chair, getting my neck shaved while old men spat their tobacco and told tall tales.  Daddy was there, telling tales with the best of them.  They were all laughing, reminiscing, solving world problems, and giving me advice.  All of those men are gone now, even the times.  But those days live in my memory and I am grateful that the Barber Pole in Savannah, Georgia took me there yesterday.  What a trip!

Haircut done, powder applied, and gel generously worked in.  I gave Clay a $10 tip and told him to take care of that five year old.  His eyes swelled with tears and he said that he would.

I scurried back to my car so that I would not be accused of having a “crooked British haircut!”  God bless her……